It seems BCCI has found a middle path to ensure more rest for India's 'overworked' cricketers as well as scheduling more interesting matches for the fans to savour.
It seems BCCI has found a middle path to ensure more rest for India's 'overworked' cricketers as well as scheduling more interesting matches for the fans to savour.
According to Indian cricket team's new Future Tours Programme, India will host 81 matches across formats from 2019-2023, 30 more than the previous FTP but the number of playing days will come down. This means India will play more matches against quality opponents like Australia, England and South Africa and fewer matches against lesser-ranked teams.
It seems that the new FTP not only gives fans plenty of cricket to look forward to but also addresses captain Virat Kohli's complaints on player fatigue.
The revised FTP was agreed upon unanimously at the Board's Special General Body Meeting (SGM) - a move that will see India playing more Tests against Australia, England and South Africa. A working group, comprising all three office-bearers, will take a final call on this.
"Earlier, the proposed FTP for the five year cycle (2019 -2023) had 51 matches across three formats. The new proposal has 81 home matches in that cycle," acting secretary Amitabh Chaudhary said after the meeting.
Chaudhary said that match days at home will go down by 20 percent, there is a marked 60 percent increase in matches at home. However, the series against lesser-ranked teams will come down, a top official PTI on condition of anonymity.
While the break-up was not provided, Chaudhary's brief made it clear that India will be playing an increased number of T20 Internationals at home while the bulk of big Test series will be against Australia, England and South Africa.
The format likely to be hit most will be bilateral ODIs while number of T20 matches are expected to increase.
"Half of our home games, we will play against the big three - Australia, South Africa and England," Chaudhary said.
When asked that whether if it means that only four nations will play more Tests against each other, Chaudhary said: "You can say so."
Asked how Kohli's fatigue issue has been addressed, Chaudhary said: "During the 2015 to 2019, the Indian team, across formats (home and abroad), had 390 playing days. The new proposal between 2019 to 2023 will see them playing 306 days."
This effectively means from an average 97.5 days during the earlier cycle, Kohli and Co. will play 76.5 days at the max during the next cycle.
"This excludes the ICC Champions Trophy and Cricket World Cup, both of which will be hosted by India in 2021 and 2023 respectively," he added.
The new FTP has been chalked out in order to ensure that BCCI can get a good broadcast deal when it's up for grabs from October 2018. The current broadcast rights with Star Sports ends in March 2018.
BCCI to keep fighting with Kochi Tuskers
Among other issues, the BCCI decided to continue its legal fight against the defunct Kochi Tuskers, who recently won a compensation claim to the tune of Rs 850 crore.
"An arbitration was awarded to Kochi, which was challenged by BCCI. However, we had interaction with the erstwhile franchise on whether we could come to an out of court settlement.
"We then put the matter to our legal team. We have decided we must not settle this out of court. We will continue with legal procedure," the Secretary said.
RCA ban revoked
The conditional revocation of Rajasthan Cricket Association (RCA) happened on expected lines with a rider given to them that former IPL commissioner Lalit Modi, who is under a life ban from the BCCI, won't come back in the association in any capacity.
Also, the members were apprised of the letters written by the Sports Ministry and NADA about having BCCI as a signatory.
The house was unanimous that there was no need to come under NADA fold despite the body's active demand to carry out dope tests of the cricketers.
"We have told them that we have a robust system in place and we are already WADA compliant. Also our testing is done at the same NDTL lab where samples collected by NADA is tested," he said.
India to host Afghanistan's first test
India will host Afghanistan for their first ever Test in 2019-2020, the BCCI announced on Monday. Afghanistan earned their Test status alongside Ireland this June.
"Afghans were scheduled to play their first Test in 2019 versus Australia but considering the historic relationship between India and Afghanistan, we decided to host their first Test," said Choudhary.
Afghanistan and Ireland were made full members of the International Cricket Council (ICC) in June, becoming the sport's 11th and 12h Test-playing nations.
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