Becoming the first Indian cricketer to score a pink ball half-century, Cheteshwar Pujara on Saturday spoke of the challenges involved in playing Pink ball cricket especially at twilight. Cheteshwar who scored 55 runs but failed to achieve a big score due to multiple challenges they faced during their first-ever maiden Day/Night Test against Bangladesh.
“Batting under lights was difficult but when we start playing under lights, it’s a bit more challenging. The first session is slightly easier to bat when there are no lights. But when the lights come into play, the ball starts swinging a bit more. It’s the most testing times of the day. It’s easy to sight the ball under sunlight,” Pujara said after the second day.
Furthermore, “That (twilight) was the right time to bowl. The ball was swinging and we thought we can pick up early wickets. That was the right time and the dew wasn’t there. Dew started after tea time.”
Pujara felt the best time to bat with the pink ball is at the beginning of the innings or late into the session.
India finished the first innings with 347 giving Bangladesh a chance to get the taste of their second innings where Mushfiqur Rahim remained the highest run-scorer with 59* (not out) till the end of the day.