I was there when history was being made

The picture you see with this piece, taken with my cellphone, is a slice of history mundane and devoid of detail as it may seem. I had been waiting for months for this, and the last two days since I arrived in Australia have been spent in virtually sleepless anticipation.

On Friday morning, therefore, I was up at 4am, having just about dozed off around 2am. The thought of missing this moment had induced paranoid wakefulness.

On the edge since the crack of dawn, I was all ready at 8am to the ground, and by 9 I had taken position in the media box, much to the amusement of the staff who had only just arrived. The match, incidentally, was to start at 2pm.

By the time the toss had taken place, the stadium was buzzing with excitement – and expectation. Several people I spoke to were consumed by the occasion even if not knowing how things would pan out.

By 1.50 I left my seat in the media box to be closer to the action to capture the big moment. I am not a professional sports photographer and had to wriggle between spectators on the lower tier at the ground with the plea that I had taken a trip Down Under from India just for this moment.

The Aussies are either very sporting people or they think Indians are just nuts about cricket. Perhaps the truth is that the value of both these propositions is very high, because I was allowed to sit on the laps of two guys in adjoining seats and take this photo.

It is the first delivery of the first-ever day-night Test match. This match, between Australia and New Zealand which began on November 27 at the Adelaide Oval, is also being played with a pink ball. Add both these facts together and you arrive at the quantum leap of faith that cricket has taken.

I suppose there was an inevitability about day-night cricket happening, though the pink ball is certainly radical. Test spectatorship has been floundering for some decades now, and the administrators have been racking their brains on how to salvage the situation.

It astounds me that it took them so long to plump for cricket under floodlights even in the five-day format because it has been so hugely successful in ODIs and T20. I suppose it is only stodgy conservativeness of the powers that be that delayed the inevitable.

Keeping spectators engaged for five days, often for matches to end in stalemates, is a big enough challenge in itself, though there has been a heartening growth in results in the past 15-18 years.

With positive captaincy and with batsmen and bowlers being strongly influenced by limited overs cricket, prepared to innovate and take more risks, drawn Tests have diminished considerably.

Even so, seducing people to the ground has not been easy, apart from perhaps the great allure of the Ashes – driven as much by superb marketing as the long legacy of the contest.

How badly spectatorship has been hit can be gauged by the fact that India – the richest cricketing country with the largest following – has seen thin attendance in the Tests against the world’s number one side, South Africa.

Day-night cricket allows people time to finish their work and come to the ground. True, they may still not be able to do this for five days, but it will certainly improve the current rate of attendances.

School and college kids, otherwise marginalised because of their academic commitments, will find the time, and weekends can be almost picnic-like for families. The pink ball adds a colourful dimension that fans – at the ground and watching on TV – will find attractive.

At least that’s what the administrators hope. How this experiment pans out could well determine the future of Test cricket, but everybody is agreed that without this innovation progress would have been impossible.

"Whichever way it goes, this is a moment to cherish," former Australian fast bowler Glenn McGrath told me before play started. That is why, the photo with this piece is so important for me.