After all the salary hike saga, double whammy strikes Bangladesh Cricket as Tamim Iqbal, a dashing left-handed opener pulled out of the Indian tour at the eleventh hour citing personal reasons and Bangladesh’s mainstay-Shakib Al Hasan, the captain, who was supposed to lead the team, was received a two-year ban from ICC for failing to report bookie approach – Not once, Not twice but thrice. Bewildered!!!

Prevailing over all the hardships, Bangladesh cricket team finally landed for a four-week long tour of India. They play two test matches and three T20s, starting tomorrow (Nov.3).

Currently, India is on top of ICC World Test Championship with 240 points after clinching a historic 3-0 series against touring South Africa. The team also surpassed the Australian record of staying unbeaten in 11 consecutive test series at home. Virat Kohli and Co. are a tough team to beat. Rohit Sharma, the new opener that India discovered of late, being in ominous form with three centuries in four innings and a double hundred amongst them, Ravichandran Ashwin, surpassing 350 test wickets to be the fastest Indian bowler to achieve that feat.

Bangladesh on the other hand has lost both its previous test series, one against Afghanistan and prior to that against New Zealand. To add to it are the spate of controversies. Bangladesh certainly has a tall order here in India.

On the positive side, Bangladesh cricket team will witness a red carpet welcome at the iconic Eden Gardens in Kolkata as they play their first ever Day Night Test Match. Yes, India will host the first ever D/N test match on Indian soil from Nov. 22. Pink ball will be used for the test match which is slated to start at 2 pm and end at 9 pm. Pink ball and dew seems to be a daunting task to negotiate for both the teams as none of them have played with it on earlier occasions. However, the first D/N test match was played between Australia and New Zealand at Adelaide oval in 2015, which Australia won by 3 wickets.

India, especially the new BCCI President Sourav Ganguly, is all agog to host the first D/N test match in India as he firmly believes this would turn the fortunes for Test cricket in the sub-continent.

– D. Vijeth