The Indian cricket team will be donning their white jerseys with numbers and names for the first time in an international Test match when they play West Indies in the Test series opener in Antigua starting 22 August.
After the ICC gave a green light to the proposal aimed at popularising the game's traditional format, the Australian and English cricket teams were first seen flaunting the white flannels with their names and numbers embossed on them, in the ongoing Ashes series.
While the team had also worn these jerseys in the warm-up game, the Indian cricketers posed in their shining new jerseys for a photoshoot ahead of the series opener in Coolidge.
The BCCI also posted a video of the Indian cricketers reacted to the new kit. “The complaints from my family and friends are that once all of us are on the field, no one knows who is who because all of us have beards. And once you wear the helmet, you can’t really see who is batting,” KL Rahul said.
“It becomes easier for the crowd to identify the players when they are on the field,” said opener Cheteshwar Pujara, while bowler Ravichandran Ashwin said, “Whatever is going to engage the fans, and bring the younger audiences back into the oldest and best form of the game, is good enough”.
The development had left the cricket community divided. Many called the change positive while on the other hand, the purists did not quite like the idea of tinkering with tHE tradition and heritage attached to the format. The English county sides as well as the Australian state teams playing the Sheffield Shield, though, have been used to wearing whites with names and numbers on the back.
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