AFP

BCCI snubs England over venues

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has rejected England's request for better venues when Michael Vaughan's team tours the country next March-April

AFP
17-Nov-2005


Michael Vaughan and Duncan Fletcher will have more than the quality of the opposition to worry about when England tour India next year © Getty Images
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has rejected England's request for better venues when Michael Vaughan's team tours the country next March-April.
The itinerary drawn up by the Indian board has Tests in Ahmedabad, Nagpur and Mumbai and seven one-day matches in Goa, Indore, Guwahati, Faridabad, Cuttack, Kochi and Visakhapatnam. England, although satisfied with Mumbai, preferred to play the other matches in traditional centres like New Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata which have enough hotels to accommodate the large media contingent and fans expected for the tour.
The BCCI declined to change venues, saying it was a long-standing policy to rotate international matches among the 21 venues dotted across the country. "There is no question of a change in venues," said Gautam Dasgupta, BCCI joint-secretary, after meeting John Carr, England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) official, and Richard Bevan, the players' representative, in Kolkata."We have many centres in India who all want to host international matches. You just can't ignore them."
To add to England's woes, two three-day practice matches ahead of the Test series were on Thursday allocated to Jamshedpur and Agartala, towns without luxury hotels. Jamshedpur, an industrial town in the eastern state of Jharkhand, hosted the last of its nine one-dayers against Pakistan in April. Agartala, in the country's northeast, has never hosted an international match.
A one-day practice match before the seven limited-overs games will be played in the northern hill resort of Dharamshala, better known as the home of Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader."We have a policy to promote remote centres like Agartala and Dharamshala, hence the matches there," said Dasgupta. ECB's Carr declined to comment on the schedule.
Dasgupta also stated that the final itinerary will be released soon. Criticism in the British media that playing in smaller centres will inconvenience both the team and the accompanying party of journalists and fans was scoffed at by another BCCI official. "England have played in India in the recent past. Where were the supporters? We did not see any," he said. "Agartala has a wonderful stadium and world-class facilities for the players and the media. It was time to give it an international match."
England's only hope of getting the venues changed may lie in the outcome of BCCI's annual elections on November 29-30 where Ranbir Singh Mahendra, incumbent president and protege of Jagmohan Dalmiya, the former ICC chief, faces a stiff contest from heavyweight politician Sharad Pawar. Pawar's supporters - Raj Singh Dungarpur and Inderjit Bindra - are known to enjoy better relations with the ECB than Dalmiya.