On Wednesday, former BCCI chief curator Daljit Singh proposed more grass on the 22 yards and a little less on the outfield to counter the dew factor for the first-ever day-night Test at Kolkata. BCB has given a nod with this idea of BCCI and it will be played in pink-ball.

“One of the main worries will be the dew. There is no doubt about that. They will have to understand that it will be a handicap which you can’t eliminate,” Daljit Singh told PTI. “To counter that, you have to have thin grass cover on the outfield and taller than usual grass on pitch. The heavier the outfield, the more, it will attract dew. They need to start doing that from today itself.”

The game is expected to begin around 1.30 pm local time and end around 8.30 pm. However, he shared the way how they can beat the dew factor too.

“The pink ball gets dirty very quickly so they have to keep more grass on the pitch. If you remember, when the first day-night Test was played at the Adelaide (in 2017), they left 11 mm grass on the pitch, that too you will have culture (nurture) it. You can’t just shave it off just days before the game or else pitch will play slow.,” he said.

“The dew was an issue (when Duleep Trophy was played), the ball got really dirty. The match was played with 7mm grass on the pitch, normally the grass is 2.5 to 4 mm long. And taller grass means the ball will seam a lot,” he added.

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Another experienced curator, however, advised against watering the outfield before two-three days of the game.

“Dew factor will be there but it won’t be so cold at that point of time. Anti-dew chemicals will have to be used besides the super-soppers, grass on the outfield will have to be cut a lot, irrigation has to be stopped two days before the game because it attracts moisture. Normally we keep the grass on the outfield between 7-8mm, for the day-night Test it could be cut to 6mm. This way you can minimise the dew factor but one can’t fully negate a natural phenomenon,” said the curator.

“There is no hard soil there, it is a beautiful soil they have there. They have pretty experienced set of people there and I am sure they will do a good job,” added Daljit Singh.

However, CAB curator Sujan Mukherjee said that dew will not affect much on the game.

“A lot of precautionary measures will be taken to negate the dew factor. Moreover, dew falls only after 8-8.30pm and continues till about midnight. But as the match would be an early start, the match would be over by 8-8.30pm. So dew won’t be a problem at all. Our experiment with the day/night match (CAB Super League final in 2016) was very successful and there was no complaint about the ball getting soft,” said Mukherjee.