Virat Kohli warns against diluting purity of Test cricket ahead of India's pink-ball debut

India are set to host Bangladesh in the country’s first pink-ball Test at Eden Gardens, Kolkata, beginning on Friday, with Kohli leading the hosts

Virat Kohli has warned cricket’s administrators against making pink-ball Tests a regular occurrence.

India are set to host Bangladesh in the country’s first pink-ball Test at Eden Gardens, Kolkata, beginning on Friday, with Kohli leading the hosts.

It will be the first time that India have taken part in such a game, four years after Australia and New Zealand played out the first day-night Test in 2015 at Adelaide. There have been 11 pink-ball Tests to this point.

“In my opinion, this should not become the only way Test cricket is played,” Kohli said, “because then you are losing out on that nervousness of the first session in the morning.

“It can be a one-off thing, it should not be a regular scenario. You can bring excitement into Test cricket but you can't purely make Test cricket based on just entertainment.

“Entertainment of Test cricket lies in the fact that a batsman is trying to survive a session and the bowler is trying to get a batsman out. If people don't respond to that, too bad.

“If someone gets excitement from watching the battle between bat and ball, in my opinion, those are the people that should come and watch Test cricket because they understand what's going on.”

^{The first pink-ball Test took place in Adelaide between Australia and New Zealand}

Kohli explained that the impact of the ball itself was providing challenges as his side prepares to take on Bangladesh. The home team won the first Test of the two-match series convincingly at Indore, with Mayank Agarwal making 243 in an innings victory.

The below-par showing from Bangladesh was the effort of a team in disarray and learning to cope without its key player, Shakib Al Hasan, who has been banned for a year by the ICC’s anti-corruption unit.

Mominul Haque was handed the captaincy in the wake of his absence. His leadership began as well as could have been hoped, winning the toss and opting to bat at Indore, only for his batsmen to fail to impose themselves on India’s impressive bowling attack.

Imrul Kayes and Shadman Islam both struggled at the top of the order, but will likely keep their places, with 21-year-old batsman Saif Hassan, who might have replaced one of the forlorn openers, ruled out due to a split webbing on his hand.

Only Mushfiqur Rahim passed fifty in the first Test – a problem that will need urgent addressing if the tourists are to stand a chance under the Kolkata lights, where the visibility of the ball is likely to pose an additional difficulty for players on both sides.

“In the slips, the ball hit your hand so hard, it almost felt like a heavy hockey ball,” Kohli added.

“It's definitely much harder and, for some reason, it felt a little heavier. Even the throws took a lot more effort to reach the keeper.

“During the day, high catches would be very difficult. With red ball and white ball, you catch with an idea of knowing how fast the ball is coming down.

“But this time, if you don't look at the ball in your palm, it's gone.”

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