India Women to play their first day-night Test during Australia tour
The tour will feature three ODIs and three T20Is as well
Nagraj Gollapudi18-May-2021
Mithali Raj will have the opportunity to be Test captain twice in the same calendar year•UPCA
India Women will play their first-ever day-night Test when they tour Australia in September. The Test will be played at the WACA Ground in Perth and will be sandwiched between three ODIs and as many T20Is.*A Cricket Australia release stated that the ODIs will be played at North Sydney Oval (September 19) and the Junction Oval (September 22 and 24) before the caravan moves to Perth for the standalone Test, scheduled from September 30 to October 3.The tour will conclude with three T20Is at North Sydney Oval (October 7, 9 and 11), with the Australia team then set to break for the WBBL before the Ashes.BCCI secretary Jay Shah had also tweeted confirming the day-night Test.
This will be only the second Test in women’s cricket to be played under lights with a pink ball. The only other women’s day-night Test also featured Australia, in which they drew with England in Sydney in 2017.Later, Australia will host England too for a Test at the Manuka Oval in Canberra as part of the Ashes series.Australia are the current T20 World Cup champions, having beaten India in the final of the 2020 edition. In ODIs, they are on a 24-match winning streak.”There is no doubt that T20 cricket has been, and will continue to be, a key driver of growth for women’s cricket globally,” Nick Hockley, Cricket Australia’s interim CEO, said. “That said, it is testament to how far the game has come that we are in a position to host two women’s Test matches against the might of India and England, which we know will prove popular with cricket-lovers right around the world.”This will be India’s first Test in Australia since the Adelaide Test in 2006. In all, Australia and India have played nine Tests, with Australia winning four of them and the other five being drawn. The teams first met in a Test match in Perth in 1977, then played four Tests in India in 1984, followed by a three-Test series in Australia in 1990-91 and then the Adelaide match in 2006.
India are set to play two Tests in the same year for the first time since 2014. The Bristol Test against England from June 16, in which they will be led by Mithali Raj, will be India’s first Test match since they beat South Africa in Mysore in November 2014.That India are scheduled to tour Australia in September was first mentioned on record by Australia fast bowler Megan Schutt on a recent podcast. Schutt told that Australia’s next assignment will be at home mid-September against India, with a preparatory camp in Darwin.The tour originally consisted of three ODIs and was scheduled for January this year, but in December 2020 a report on the CA website said the assignment would be rescheduled for the 2021-22 season and would be expanded to include three T20Is as well.