Anurag Thakur: We are not in a hurry to start with pink-ball cricket

Anurag Thakur recently spoke about his intentions off the Pink ball test cricket along with the implementation of DRS in India matches

Anurag Thakur the president of Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) recently spoke on various issues like BCCI’s new strategies to increase the popularity of Test cricket in India. He also spoke about the Lodha Panel’s recommendations and about his views on those. In addition to this he also expressed his uncertainty over the use of DRS in India matches and why he is still dicey over the use of Hawk-eye in India’s forthcoming long Test series in home. It is due his nature that Thakur is regarded as the first of his stature in the BCCI to be so outspoken. READ: Anurag Thakur: Will not give single per cent share from BCCI to ICC

Talking about increasing the popularity of Test cricket in India, Thakur said that he was happy with the way people have responded to the on-going Duleep Trophy which is also the first time ever that the Pink ball has been used for the tournament. He was quoted by cricbuzz.com as, “Look at the Duleep Trophy that we held in Greater Noida. Every day we have a few thousand people coming to see that, which is a great thing.” READ: Cheteshwar Pujara completes 10,000 First-Class runs

Talking about the player’s performance he agreed that players irrespective of their good performance have not got much opportunity. He said, “I agree with you and I want to change a few things. This year we played Duleep Trophy as a day and night affair. So there is some change we are bringing. What we are trying to do with Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy is that it will be played in various zones.”

“They should play matches at the zonal level. Then, we must come out with a league kind of a structure where the zones must own a team and they must participate in a league. So you have six teams playing a league like IPL. That will get more revenue, more value and more talent out of that. I’ll be coming out with that soon.”

Speaking about his views on DRS and its implementation he said, “We are not in a hurry to start with pink-ball cricket. You have to look at the Indian conditions, advantages and disadvantages of playing with the pink ball. There is a charm of playing in a white cricket gear and a red ball that comes with Test cricket.

‘With the DRS, I’m open about implementing some parts of it, but LBW is still not 100% sure. After the MIT report, even the ICC wasn’t confident enough to implement that.”