NEW DELHI: A revised Future Tours Programme (FTP) passed unanimously at the Board of Control of Cricket in India’s (BCCI) SGM on Monday will see India playing more Tests against Australia, England and South Africa.
India will host 81 matches across formats from 2019-2023, 30 more than the previous Future Tours Programme, but the number of playing days will come down with the BCCI deciding to prune the Test schedule against lesser-ranked teams.
“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 told mediapersons 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.
BCCI has 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.
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 excludes the ICC Champions Trophy and Cricket World Cup, both of which will be hosted by India in 2021 and 2023 respectively.”
The new FTP has been chalked out keeping in mind the next round of broadcast rights deal that comes up for grabs from October 2018. The current broadcast rights with Star Sports ends in March 2018.
