“No politics please”, said N Srinivasan when asked about the allotment of a Test match to Kolkata. “It was the first on the rotation list and got its due,” the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India said.
Eden Gardens will get to host a Test after more than two years and just over a couple of months after it hosted an ODI. That there are different rotations for the Tests and ODIs justify the matches in close interval yet a change of approach by the BCCI management towards the Jagmohan Dalmiya-headed CAB cannot be escaped.
Not long ago, the CAB was complaining about the ‘victimisation.’ Kolkata last hosted a Test in Nov 2007 and since then 13 Tests have been played in India. There are eight Test centres.
When contacted, Dalmiya refused to see any ‘favour’ in the BCCI’s tours and fixtures committee’s decision. “We were due for a Test. So we see it as a normal decision,” the CAB president said. Kolkata will get to host the second of the two Tests that MS Dhoni & Co will play against South Africa.
Nagpur, which recently hosted an ODI and a T20, will host the first Test. Again the different rotation policy is the ‘justification’ for the recent matches at the BCCI president’s centre. Nagpur had last hosted a Test in November 2008.
Two other centres which recently hosted Tests have been allotted ODIs. Ahmedabad and Kanpur, where Sri Lanka played Tests recently, will be the venues for two of the three ODIs against the Proteas. Jaipur will be the other venue. Visakhapatnam, which lost out on an ODI because of the Telengana muddle, was denied again because of the same reason. The city has been promised an ODI against Australia in October.
Originally, South Africa were to play only five ODIs. But as first reported by DNA, BCCI had a change of heart and wanted to give MS Dhoni & Co the best possible opportunity to retain their ranking. It requested South Africa to play two Tests and three ODIs instead of the scheduled five one-dayers. Cricket South Africa, known to be very close to the BCCI, had no hesitation.
The Board has not yet announced the dates but Graeme Smith & Co will arrive in the first week of February and leave by the end of the month after playing the last ODI at Motera on February 27.
Meanwhile, top Board officials including president Shashank Manohar, secretary Srinivasan and Delhi District Cricket Association president Arun Jaitley met on Sunday to prepare a reply to the notice of the International Cricket Council on the December 27 pitch fiasco at the Feroz Shah Kotla. It is learnt that the BCCI officials will insist on terming it as a “poor” rather than “unfit” pitch. The reply, however, has not yet been sent to the ICC.
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