Why should Indian cricket fans be excited about 2016-17 cricket season?

They say you should never renovate your kitchen, because once you do, your living room suddenly looks like a bomb site and your bathroom is a crime scene. So if you are going to renovate, you might as well do it all the way. And that is exactly what Anurag Thakur, the newly crowned President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has done in his quest to revamp the domestic circuit and rebrand Test cricket in the country.

India's 2016-17 campaign will include 13 Tests, eight ODIs and three T20Is; in all, 13 Tests equal the record for the highest number of home Tests in a single season for the Men in Blue; the only other instance was in 1979-80. It will also go down as a world record for the number of Test matches in a home season.

So if you are one of those who says – “Test cricket is the real form of cricket”, then the 2016-17 season is one for your liking.

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Day-night love affair with the Pink cherry

Following up on the recommendations of Sourav Ganguly and his Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) team, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Thursday announced that the upcoming Duleep Trophy will be a day-night affair, wherein the pink ball will be used for the first time.

This year’s domestic season is expected to be played by cricketers hopeful of reigniting their test careers along with fresh, young talent waiting to make their mark at the international level, considering the upcoming 13 Test matches at home.

With the ambition of hosting the first D/N Match in Kolkata, the objective would be to receive feedback from players on how they feel, how the pitch conditions will be and how the dew will play a role. This experiment will help decide the viability of hosting a D/N Test match in October against New Zealand and lay the groundwork for the future.

With the tournament scrapped off last year due to a crowded schedule, this year’s tournament seems to be making a comeback with a bang. The change comes at a time when Test cricket is limping worryingly on its weak legs.

A new Ranji team

Chhatisgarh will take part in the 2016-17 Ranji Trophy for the first time. Ever since Chhatisgarh’s inception, their cricketers had to suffer due to the absence of affiliation for the state from the BCCI.

On Thursday, the Board officially announced Chhatisgarh State Cricket Sangh (CSCS) as its 28th team in Ranji Trophy. Chhattisgarh will be included in Group 'C' as the 10th team.

With more opportunities for young players in different age groups, these are exciting times for Indian cricket, who will be hoping to produce some fresh talent to feed to the National side in the coming years.

Test Debut of six stadiums

The BCCI has announced that Rajkot, Visakhapatnam, Pune, Dharamsala, Indore and Ranchi will debut as Test venues in India's 2016-17 home season, which will include series against New Zealand, England, Australia and a unique one-off match series against Bangladesh.

The last of which will also mark Bangladesh’s first Test series in India, since their Full Member status granted in 2000. Indore will be the first of the 6 new venues to field the Indian and the New Zealand teams during the series, slated to kick-off in late September.

Following this, the English national side will travel to Rajkot and Visakhapatnam between November and January. The much-awaited fixture of the season will see India and Australia resume their rivalry on three new turfs – Dharamsala, Ranchi and Pune in the early summer of 2017.

Test of cricket

With New Zealand playing 3 Tests, England playing 5 (the first time India is hosting a 5-match test series in two decades), and Australia to feature in 4 Tests, it will surely prove to be a true test of the format. Can Test cricket rake in the numbers that T20 has been putting up? Maybe not.

With 13 Test matches set to take place in the upcoming calendar year, these are truly testing times. We will also learn if the focus on Tests in new venues will prove to be a financially viable option for the near future.

On a side note, what the early release of the season’s list conveys is that there is no India-Pakistan Test series to be played, putting a rest to all the speculation surrounding it in recent times. Nevertheless, the next twelve months will be an adventure for the cricket aficionados.

The 2016-17 season promises to be a bumper season of new flavors, with cricket expected to be played in length and breadth of the country. Whether Test cricket will reignite the love among the fans is left to be seen, but it is certainly headed in the right direction.