Australia, England, India, and another top team will feature in 'Super Series' in 2021: BCCI President Sourav Ganguly

The International Cricket Council (ICC) had planned to include an ICC event every year starting from 2023. However, the big three boards in Cricket Australia (CA), England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) are not in agreement for the same given that it might affect them financially and have come up with a solution of their own.

ICC’s intentions – agreed to in principle by member nations earlier this year, to add an extra 50-over tournament to the already packed calendar to the ICC events cycle beginning in 2023. However, the Members Playing Agreement is yet to be signed and the Indian board under the new management led by former captain Sourav Ganguly, along with CA and ECB have reportedly rejected the idea.

Four-nation ODI Super Series will get underway, confirms Sourav Ganguly

BCCI secretary Jay Shah and treasurer Arun Singh Dhumal were in London recently to meet the ECB officials and perhaps discuss the possibility of an ODI series featuring India, England, Australia, and another top team. “Australia, England, India, and another top team will feature in the Super Series, which begins in 2021, and the first edition of the tournament will be played in India,” Ganguly was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.com.

Other details for the event purportedly include potential windows for each of the three nations to host it – October/November for India, September for England and October/November or February/March for Australia. Now, since ICC doesn’t allow multi-nation tournaments with more than 3 teams, with the Asia Cup being an exception; it remains to be seen whether this ambitious idea gets approval from the cricketing body.

However, it seems, the three boards might go ahead with the plans and the approach for approval from ICC is rather a symbolic one. There were hosts of meeting with CA chair Earl Eddings and chief executive Kevin Roberts recently hosting ICC chief executive Manu Sawhney for a meeting in Melbourne, in addition to Ganguly’s visit to London.

The top three boards feel that an extra ICC event eats into the money generated by the bilateral series and is detrimental to their finances. Earlier, it was also reported by Newindianexpress.com, that the three boards were planning to hold a T20 series to prepare for the T20 World Cup in Australia. However, the ICC might not like the idea, given that the matches might clash with the warmup games for the event, something it believes to be a bad advertisement.

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