The schedule and venues for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy that is scheduled to be played between January to March was announced and surprisingly, Eden Gardens and Wankhede were not part of the list. The omission has drawn some reactions from the fans while former skipper Sourav Ganguly has said that it would have been nice to see Kolkata hosting the Test match in BGT but the facilities in Guwahati and Ranchi are “excellent”.
“It’s always great to have big Test matches back at Eden Gardens. As the president of the CAB and a former player, I would like to host Test matches here, but we already hosted the Test against South Africa, and then there were T20 World Cup games and Indian Premier League fixtures,” Ganguly, the president of the Cricket Association of Bengal, told Sportstar.
“But stadiums all around India are very good. I am happy to see a Test match in Chennai, and then there are matches in Guwahati and Ranchi, where the facilities are excellent. As much as you would like to host matches at Eden, it’s important to understand that games also need to go to other venues,” he added.
Former India spinner Venkatapathy Raju, was in favour of big centres hosting high-profile Tests. “Back in our time, we had five Test venues – Kolkata, Kanpur, Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai – and they had their own charm. I think they should go back to that format again,” Raju said.
“Hosting T20Is and ODIs is fine, but playing at these five Test centres is always special. Playing at a venue like Eden is a privilege because of the huge crowd support,” Raju added.
India vs Australia
The five-match Test series will begin Nagpur on January 21 before the action shifts to Chennai for the second Test where the match is slated to begin on January 29. The third game will be taking place in Guwahati from February 11, fourth in Ranchi from February 19 and the fifth one is scheduled to be played in Ahmedabad from February 27.
It’s going to be an important series for India as well as the performance in the longer format hasn’t been great. In fact, India are staring at an early exit from the World Test Championship especially after losing three Test series against New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.
While Gautam Gambhir has tasted success in white-ball format, the Test results aren’t encouraging. India suffered clean sweep defeats against New Zealand and South Africa at home while lost the battle in Tour Downunder against Australia.
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