The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : No tossing away the toss

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 15, 2004

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Sport - Cricket

No tossing away the toss

By Our Sports Reporter

BANGALORE, JULY 14. The tentative proposal of doing away with the toss for domestic matches and let the visiting team decide its options will not be considered by the BCCI, at least at the present juncture. The scrapping of this proposal and a slew of other measures were discussed in the BCCI technical committee meeting at the Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Wednesday.

Sunil Gavaskar chaired the meeting, attended by Dilip Vengsarkar, chairman, Talent Resource Development Wing; B. Ganguly, former umpire; Syed Kirmani, chairman of selection committee, special invitee; and the members Chetan Chauhan, Rakesh Parikh, P.K. Mishra and Gulrez Ali. BCCI secretary S.K. Nair convened the meeting while special invitee Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi and South Zone representative M.V. Sridhar were the notable absentees.

In a chat with the media, the technical committee chairman Sunil Gavaskar said, "we discussed the recommendations of the captain and coaches' conclave held in Mumbai last month and also proposals regarding junior cricket. The proposal to do away with the toss for domestic matches is a radical decision but it has been decided not to go ahead with that proposal, as we have not got any feedback on it. But we have authorised the umpires and match referees to report to the Board any instance of the host association doctoring pitches to suit its side. In case we get complaints on this issue, we recommend that the host team's points be considered as null and void and in case the team loses, it will still be penalised two points. The team will also have to bear a financial penalty."

Gavaskar however reiterated that the committee is only issuing recommendations and that it is up to the BCCI's working committee to ratify the proposals in a meeting at Delhi on July 18 and 19.

Gavaskar also added that a proposal to enhance the duration of league phase matches in the Ranji Trophy has been overlooked and that the status-quo regarding Elite and Plate Divisions will be maintained.

The following are the other recommendations of the technical committee.

1. An all-India knock-out one-day tournament featuring the top two teams of each zone; 2. Standardising rollers across the country following feedback from all State associations on the technical specifications of their existing rollers; 3. Hosting the junior under-19 tournament matches in the same Zone; 4. Segregating the Cooch Behar Trophy tournament into the Elite (15 teams) and Plate (10 teams) divisions; 5. Having two teams from each Zone to compete in the Vinoo Mankad under-17 tournament; 6. Continue with the existing procedure of inviting a foreign team to compete in the Duleep Trophy.

Last year, England `A' was invited and this season, National teams of Kenya or Bangladesh may be considered; and 7. Implementation of the ICC Code of Conduct for all domestic tournaments.

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