The day-night cricket Test between England and India wrapped up in less than six full sessions of play at Ahmedabad, giving people the opportunity to take pot-shots at the Board of Control for Cricket in India.
Most of it not really worth BCCI's time but the moot question is does Indian cricket really need this?
The whole purpose of pushing the five-day contests into the "twilight" zone with pink balls for better visibility, was to get back the spectators into stadiums for the five-day game. It may work in some countries but appears to have come a cropper in the sub-continent.
Watching cricket, be it limited overs or Tests, is an all day affair in this part of the world. Realistically, if a person wishes to catch the 2.30 pm start at the venue, he or she must leave home not later than 12 noon, given all the accompanying troubles with traffic, parking and security that has all but become synonymous with cricket at this level. Even earlier if the plan is to use public transport!
So to make such drastic adjustments for the casual walk-in spectator hardly makes sense.
Moreover, cricket is a summer game for all top nations outside South Asia, where it remains a winter sport.
Herein lies the catch!
In order that conditions do not change drastically from the afternoon to the late evening hours of play, certain precautions become necessary. One of the most important among them is to guard against dew.
This practically rules out the northern part of India as venue. Some of those the east and west would also struggle, leaving only the southern cities as contenders. Even here Bengaluru and Hyderabad being far more inland than say Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram or Chennai, must yield in favour of the latter.
Cricket's pan-India base will certainly feel the pinch in case of such favoured treatment in picking venues for hosting international contests.
And England with their surprise selection for the playing eleven hardly helped matters at Ahmedabad. Their seamers James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Jofra Archer sent down a combined total of 24 of the team's first innings bowling of 53.2 overs hardly threatening the Indian batsmen. It almost appeared that England skipper Joe Root was throwing in everything to justify his naming three seamers on a Motera pitch that was turning from Day One itself.
Better sense dawned on Day Two when Root exceeded even his own best expectations with career-best figures and a maiden five-wicket haul in Test match cricket to boot.
Someone in the England think-tack obviously did not think it fit to have a close look at the track which, as photographs posted on social media on the penultimate evening show, was completely devoid of grass.
Only reason to play three seamers would be that, shortly after dusk, the ball does start doing a bit of swing and seam but then most importantly this is South Asia where conditions are vastly different from say Europe or Australia.
There was turn on offer and left batsmen from both sides extra wary, making them sitting ducks for the straight deliveries as the long list of leg-before and bowled dismissals testifies.
All said and done, day-night Test matches are best left for regions where cricket is not the number one sport and needs to catch the casual spectator with a "free" evening.
One size doesn't fit all and BCCI would do well to turn its back on the pink ball contests after the not so encouraging experiments.
