The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : BCCI favours three-Test series in West Indies

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Wednesday, Feb 08, 2006

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Sport - Cricket

BCCI favours three-Test series in West Indies

Nagpur: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is in favour of playing only three Test matches during India's tour of the West Indies and not four as originally scheduled, chairman of the Tour Programme & Fixtures Committee, Shashank Manohar, said here on Tuesday.

The Board wanted only three Test matches because India had already played an excess number in the West Indies, Mr. Manohar told reporters after the committee meeting here.

The BCCI secretary, Niranjan Shah, was also present during the press briefing. Besides Shah, others who attended the meeting were M.P. Pandove, Ratnakar Shetty, Shashikant Srivastava, K.S. Viswanathan, Amitabh Chaudhary, Hitesh Patel and R.S. Varshane.

Mr. Manohar said India had played 19 Test matches in the West Indies, whereas the West Indies had played only 15 in India. ``We have, therefore, requested their board to schedule only three Test matches,'' he said. India is also scheduled to play five ODIs in the West Indies during its tour from May 15 to July 5 this year, he said.

Triangular series

The committee also confirmed India's participation in a triangular series to be held in Sri Lanka in August this year, Mr. Manohar said. Besides host Sri Lanka and India, the third team would be South Africa.

He said the committee had decided to reduce by 200 the number of passes required to be issued by associations during matches because of problems. At present, the associations had to be given more than 700 such complementary tickets.

The committee had decided to do away with the condition that all the passes should be in the same pavilion, he also said. Now only 40 per cent of the passes would be required to be given in the main pavilion and 60 per cent in an adjoining pavilion.

This was necessary as the number of passes required to be issued was likely to increase because of the various sponsorship and telecast tie-ups that the BCCI was entering into, Mr. Manohar said.

Mr. Manohar said the match observers would henceforth collect their passes three days in advance because of the problems faced during distribution.

The fixture committee would recommend the forfeiture of a venue if the guidelines on the issue of complimentary tickets were violated, he cautioned.

To follow rotation policy

In reply to a question, Mr. Manohar said the earlier regime did not stick to the rotation policy (of the Board). ``Associations were favoured due to political reasons. We have decided not to deviate from the rotation policy.''

The committee would shortly recommend to the Board the names of the observers for the six Test matches and seven ODIs that England is scheduled to play on its tour of India, he said.

Although the names were finalised at Tuesday's meeting, Mr. Manohar declined to divulge them, saying the Board would make the announcement. — UNI

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