Ashwin hopes Day/Night marks new beginning for Test cricket

Senior Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin feels Day/Night Tests will mark a new beginning for the traditional format in the country as the spectator count will improve drastically owing to the match timings.

India will play their maiden Day/Night Test starting Friday, against Bangladesh in Kolkata. The daily proceedings in the match will start at 1pm and wind up by 8pm.

"I just hope this marks the beginning of where we get huge crowds coming into the stadium and test cricket gets its credit and obviously with the change in timings people can afford to finish their work and come into the game, watch it and enjoy it," Ashwin said on 'Star Sports'.

His teammate Mohammed Shami is focussed on the challenges that await him in the game.

"The middle session should be the main focus for batsman while using the pink ball unlike the morning session that is usually considered the most important in a test match as it will have more of a swing in Eden Gardens," he said.

Shami said the bowlers will have to work very hard to extract any assistance from the pink ball.

"...the pink ball is only useful when there a hard and grassy wicket because the ball goes straight."

"Pink ball is a very different ball and doesn't work like the white or red ball at all so there is a very low possibility that in the last session we get a swing or reverse so we will have to work very hard," he said.