Team India ready for a two-week isolation period in Australia: Senior BCCI Official

Cricket Australia (CA) has received a huge boost to their efforts to make India’s tour down under later this year possible. A senior BCCI official, its treasurer, Arun Dhumal has confirmed that the team is ready to isolate in Australia for two weeks before the tour commences. The tour is extremely crucial for CA as far as their current financial situation is concerned.

CA is expected to earn $ 300 million through broadcasting rights itself if the tour goes ahead. With no cricket being played due to the pandemic, 80% of the CA staff stood down in April on 20% pay. Even the state boards have also been to suffer 25% pay cuts to their annual grants.

Arun Dhumal, while speaking to Nine Entertainment, felt that there is no other choice than to go into isolation as cricket has to be resumed at some point. He also mentioned that a 14-day quarantine period is not that long for the cricketers. “There is no choice – everyone will have to do that. You would want to resume the cricket. Two weeks is not that long a lockdown.

“That would be ideal for any sportsman because when you are in quarantine for such a long period, then going to another country and having a two-week lockdown it would be a good thing to do. We’ll have to see what the norms are post this lockdown,” he said.

Decision on five-match Test series not final yet

Moreover, the BCCI treasurer also confirmed that the talks of playing five Tests on the tour instead of the traditional four-match series held before the lockdown and things might change now. He also pointed out that the final decision on the same will be taken after CA and BCCI sit down to discuss the possibilities. However, on the personal front Dhumal felt that an ODI or a T20I will get more revenues than a Test match for CA.

“Once we are sure when cricket will resume, then only will we be able to make a final call on that. That discussion (on five Tests) took place before the lockdown. If there is a window available it would be up to the boards to decide whether they wanted to go for a Test match or maybe two ODIs or maybe two T20s.

“Given the revenue loss they will have on account of lockdown, post-lockdown they will want to have revenue and revenue most likely will come from ODIs or T20s much more than a Test match,” he added. Meanwhile, Arun Dhumal also made it clear that it is tough for the T20 World Cup to go ahead in this situation later this year. ICC and CA are set to discuss about the same on Friday.