MUMBAI: Saba Karim, the BCCI’s General Manager of Operations has declared the cricket board ready when it comes to tackling the challenges such as logistics for organizing more than 2000 domestic matches across the Indian cricket season for the first time in history, ESPNcricinfo reports.
The BCCI has increased the number of matches from 900 to 2017 due to the formation of nine new teams as per the new constitution that has been approved by the Supreme Court after taking the Lodha committee reforms into account. One of the reforms was for every Indian state to have full membership rights with the BCCI along with a team, which also meant including those from the North East region. As a result, the board’s challenges have grown from logistics to supporting those states with no or poor infrastructure to host matches this season.
When it comes to infrastructure, the BCCI have arranged grounds for those states that are weak in that department which are near their territory. For instance, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland will play their home games in Assam while Sikkim will do the same in Odisha.
The board has asked all the new teams to have four groundsmen, four administrative staff members, six coaches, six physios and six trainers. The teams are also expected to hire management professionals and coaching staff for a year through tripartite contracts along with the BCCI, who will fill the remaining vacancies. The aim is to make them more self-sufficient from the 2019-2020 season.
Ex-cricketers have fortunately put their hand up for coaching such as former India fast bowler who lives in Sydney, Subroto Banerjee will be flying down to coach Bihar, former Indian opening batsman Shiv Sundar Das has been named by Manipur and former Hyderabad offspinner Kanwaljeet Singh will coach Nagaland amongst some examples.
While the systems are set in place and the wheels are in motion, the BCCI has instructed its Anti-Corruption Unit as well to be on alert for inter-state transfers of outstation players through malpractice since only three are allowed in the squad.
