BCCI explains the rescheduling of Sri Lanka's tour to India

Amitabh Choudhary, who is the acting secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced the team’s schedule of cricketing action in the coming months. India will host Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka for tours between September and December respectively. Choudhary also cleared the air about Sri Lanka’s tour being pushed ahead in the pipeline.

Explaining the reason for the Lankan team’s early arrival for the bilateral series, Choudhary cited the Independence Cup, which is to be played in the island country early next year, as the main reason. He also talked about the cancellation of the six bilateral tours between India and Pakistan, which has led to empty spaces in the cricketing calendar of the team. Choudhary also released the venues for the upcoming matches after a meeting of the BCCI’s Tour Programme and Fixtures Committee.

Speaking about Sri Lanka’s early visit

The BCCI acting secretary spoke at length about the tour rescheduling and said, “On the question of Sri Lanka’s earlier arrival…, earlier tweaking has had to happen because Sri Lanka is organising an Independence Cup in Sri Lanka.” When asked if the South Africa tour will be suffer a change in any way due to this, he added, “That will be shortly after India’s return from South Africa. Sri Lanka has always cooperated with India and therefore India will actually be making a reciprocal short version tour only to play the Independence Cup. That’s why the tweaking has taken place.”

Choudhary also accounted the cancelled tours of Pakistan as a reason for the Sri Lanka series being rescheduled and said, “There is another reason for the tweaking because there were six proposed exchange of tours between India and Pakistan, which did not happen. So, those spaces had to be adjusted with other activities.”

Venues for the upcoming matches

The Independence Cup, which will mark 70 years of Sri Lanka’s Independence, will be hosted by Lanka in March 2018 with India, South Africa and Pakistan as the fellow participating nations. Back in India, the remaining days of 2017 will be a very busy year for cricket.

“The first team which arrives in India is Australia and they play the shorter version. The five ODIs will be played at Chennai, Bangalore, Nagpur, Indore and Kolkata. The three T20 games will be played at Hyderabad, Ranchi and Guwahati,” said Choudhary.

Further, Sri Lanka will play three Tests, three ODIs and three T20s in India. According to the BCCI, the three Tests will be at Kolkata, Nagpur and Delhi. The three ODIs will be at Dharamsala, Mohali and Vizag, while the three T20 games will be at Kochi/Trivandrum because Trivandrum has a new stadium, Indore and Mumbai.

Lastly, Choudhary discussed the Kiwis’ visit and said, “New Zealand will play three ODI and three T20 games. Three ODIs will be at Pune, Mumbai and Kanpur. Three T20s will be at Delhi, Cuttack and Rajkot.”

The dates for the matches are yet to be finalized by the governing bodies, keeping in mind the various festivities that take place in the country during September-December.