How 5-day D/N game affects cricketers...

Bit challenging to set body clock for day-night game: Kulkarni

Former Mumbai spinner Nilesh Kulkarni, who had taken four wickets in the first-ever day-night Ranji Trophy final, reckons that it will be a bit difficult for the players to adjust their body clock for a five-day Test match as compared to an ODI.

The Indian cricket team will play its first ever day-night Test match against Bangladesh next month, BCCI president Sourav Ganguly said on Tuesday, taking a path-breaking decision within a week into his ten-month tenure.

The Test is scheduled to be held at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata from November 22-26 and will be the second game of a two-match series.

"The biggest change between a one-day and five-day game is how the body clock sets for a five-day because all your eating and sleeping habits change."

"For an ODI, the body sets up quickly, but for a five-day match it is difficult, so it is interesting to see how that happens."

"It will be a bit challenging (for the players) to set the body clock and that will be interesting (to see)," Kulkarni said on Tuesday.

The former slow left-arm bowler had ended with figures of 4-143 in the 1996-97 Ranji Trophy day-night final in which Mumbai batsmen Jatin Paranjpe (current national selector) and Amol Mazumdar had slammed centuries.

"At that time, it was a complete unknown territory for us and there were no reference points on what to expect when we played and we had to find our own way as the rules then were different," Kulkarni said, walking down the memory lane.

Twenty-two years go, Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh had hosted the first-ever day-night Ranji Trophy final, which was won by Mumbai on the basis of first-innings lead.

Former India opener Wasim Jaffer, ex-national pacers Ajit Agarkar and Paras Mhambrey were part of that historic game played at the Captain Roop Singh Stadium.