The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in its Special General Meeting on Monday decided to reduce the number of playing days Team India as it took key decisions about the team’s Future Tours Programme (FTP).
The board decided to shorten the team’s cricketing calendar to 306 playing days as earlier it was of 390 playing days, for the period between 2019 to 2023. This does not include the 2021 ICC Champions Trophy and the 2023 ICC World Cup. Even if these tournaments are included still Indian cricket team’s playing days now will not surpass the 350-day mark.
This comes after Indian skipper Virat Kohli comments during the ongoing series against Sri Lanka had complained about the team not getting enough time to prepare for the series against South Africa, which begins in January.
In the meeting, it was further decided that the Indian cricket team will play almost fifty percent of its matches against big international teams like England, Australia, and South Africa. The BCCI decided that a working group will be formed for the FTP to be set up by the president, secretary, and treasurer of the board.
As per the sources of Cricketnext, the BCCI informed that the FTP is expected to have more limited overs matches. India recently had its longest home season and most of the matches were the Test matches.
The board also arrived at a decision against coming under the jurisdiction of the National Anti-Doping Agency yet again and restated its stand that it already follows the regulations laid down by WADA, which is the global anti-doping agency.
Talking about the playing days’ cycle, acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary said “In 2015-19, we had 390 days of game time and playing days come down in 2019-23 cycle with 2 ICC events. We will have 306 days of game time apart from ICC events, the 2023 World Cup and 2021 Champions Trophy included won’t exceed 350.”
He further elaborated, “It has been there for a long time. With ICC introducing Test championship and ODI league, it means the partnerships have become more coherent. It will be formalized in February next year. We have a far larger number of matches in a home season. The increase of about 20% which is substantial. Half of our games will be against Australia, England and South Africa and overall 51 games will go to 81 over next 4 years.”
Another note-worthy decision taken during the SGM was that India will now host Afghanistan for their first Test match. The dates of the historic Test will be chalked out later. Talking about the same, Amitabh said, “Afghans were scheduled to play their first Test in 2019 versus Australia but considering the historical relationship between India and Afghanistan, we decided to host their first Test.”
@ACBofficials and @BCCI have agreed that Afghanistan will play its first Test against India. The exact date and venue of the match will be shared in a joint press conference in due course. I personally thank BCCI board for the decision. @BCCI @ARG_AFG
— Atif Mashal عاطف مشعل (@MashalAtif) December 11, 2017
While commenting on the decision of not following NADA, Choudhary said, “We received a letter from NADA and the government of India essentially maintaining that NADA was the WADA body in India. We are WADA compliant because ICC code is totally WADA compliant and we are ICC compliant. We go through same process and lab as mandated by WADA.”
