NEW DELHI: The playing days of the Indian team will be reduced from 140 days to a minimum 80 days per year in the 2019-2023 Futures Tour Programme (FTP), being prepared under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators.
CoA chairman Vinod Rai told The Times of India that the Indian team management will partner in deciding the cricket calendar. “We can’t be killing the golden goose for the sake of revenue. That is why the players would be given a detailed presentation during the Delhi Test match (beginning on December 2), where their opinion will be taken into consideration by the BCCI. We will discuss the FTP with the team,” Rai said.
The initiative should help ease skipper Virat Kohli’s unhappiness over the team’s packed schedule, leading him to bemoan the lack of preparation time for the upcoming South Africa tour and prevent player burnout.
“We are taking a 360 degree view of the situation before deciding on the FTP. The burnout of players is a serious issue. The fact that the Indian team would have only two days of rest before flying out for the South African series and start playing there without warm-up game shows that something isn’t right about the schedule,” Rai said.
The TOI report adds that the proposed FTP also allows for two to three India-Pakistan bilateral series, a contentious issue thus far. “The fact that FTP has a provision for India-Pakistan series doesn’t mean that it would translate into a reality. It would be subject to clearance from the Union government,” the TOI quotes a top board official as saying.
