BCCI all set to eliminate playing Pakistan in the World Test Championship at the ICC FTP meeting

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is all prepared to eliminate playing Pakistan in the upcoming World Test Championship. The board will discuss the following matter in the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Futures Tours and Programmes (FTP) Meeting, which will be held in Singapore from December 7. It will also further discuss the flaw in the current FTP, which includes two guaranteed home series every year between February-March and October-November.

The newly introduced World Test Championship will have the nine top Test teams competing with any of the six teams of their choice. These games also include playing three countries at home and three away from home. A senior BCCI official mentioned the fact that ICC is aware of all the realities as to why India doesn’t want to play Pakistan at the Test championship.

Indian Government plays the major role in not playing series with Pakistan

The BCCI official revealed that the ICC knows all the ground realities related this issue. He also stated that the Indian government plays the major role in allowing the series against the Pakistani team and that their proposed opponent list will be passed at the FTP Meet in Singapore.

“The ICC knows the ground realities and especially chairman Shashank Manohar as he was BCCI president sometime back. We can’t play Pakistan as it is Indian government’s prerogative to allow us play them in a bilateral series,” said a BCCI official as quoted by TOI.

“Our proposed opponent list is all set to be passed at the FTP Meet in Singapore. Also as per new World Test Championship rules, if the opposition is not in the proposed list, India will not have to forfeit points or pay penalty,” the official added.

On the busy schedule of Team India

The official also addressed the concern of the team about the busy schedule and cleared things by stating that the matter is related to a flaw in the FTP and will be discussed in the upcoming meet in Singapore. He established the same question, which was also raised by the Indian captain Virat Kohli about the packed schedule of the series against Sri Lanka and the tour of South Africa thereafter.

“People are talking about two India versus Sri Lanka series inside four months but that’s only a part of the issue. Sri Lanka last played a Test series in India in 2009 so they have not played here for eight years. At some point in time, they had to come to India for a Test series. However, the earlier regime while deciding on FTP never looked at the balance. For proper balance, we will now have these two slots – February-March and October-November for home cricket. The December-January is a slot where we can go for away tours,” the official concluded.