The Board of Control for Cricket in India chalked out the new Future Tours Programme for the Indian team, at a Special General Meeting on Monday. The next FTP cycle at home will feature 81 matches across formats from 2019-2023, including high-profile series against England, South Africa and Australia. As expected, it does not feature an India-Pakistan bilateral series. The other significant development with the FTP was that there will be no bilateral series played during the Indian Premier League.
BCCI CEO Rahul Johri explained the changes in the FTP and the reason behind them saying that the schedule was prepared in a way to ensure that India plays “meaningful cricket.” In an interview with The Times of India, he spoke at length about India’s Test plans, playing Pakistan, IPL getting a window and more.
“The FTP has been worked out in a manner where there’s enough cricket at home and away, an exclusive home season every year, two ICC tournaments at home between 2021 and 2023 and it takes care of the players’ demands too,” Johri was quoted as saying.
However, he admitted that there are no provisions for playing Pakistan because that is not in the BCCI’s hands and that the Indian team should not be punished for it.
“We didn’t want a structure in place where one team is penalised for no fault of theirs. If India doesn’t play a home or away bilateral series with Pakistan until the central government clears the way forward, we had to take into account that the team cannot be penalised for sharing of points in the Test championship structure. Playing Pak, whether at home or away, is not in our hands. We have written to the Centre and we need to wait. Until then, we cannot be penalised for it,” the BCCI CEO told The Times of India.
Interestingly, the women’s cricket team had to forfeit points for not playing Pakistan in the ICC Women’s ODI Championship ahead of the World Cup this year and had to go through a Qualifier to make it.
The BCCI CEO also said that while India will be playing a lot more ODIs and T20s in the next cycle, but it won’t be at the cost of Test cricket.
About the window for the IPL, Johri said that it was a unanimous decision after talks with other member boards. “We sat with the member boards and worked out a schedule where we are committed to oversee a good balance of playing at home and away. In return, the credit goes to the BCCI team for conducting those meetings in a way where the IPL window will remain largely undisturbed,” he was quoted as saying.
Read the full interview here