Vinod Rai empathizes with Virat Kohli on cramped schedule issue

Vinod Rai, the chairman of the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) for Indian cricket, recently remarked that he totally understands fatigue is likely to trouble the Indian cricketers. His opinions have come to the fore after the Indian skipper Virat Kohli had recently slammed the cramped Indian schedule citing lack of preparation time for the South Africa series.

Things seemed to be on the merry note until the BCCI had suddenly planned a packed home season for the Indian team towards the end of 2017. As many as 23 international fixtures were announced wherein the team was slotted to play Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka. Currently, the team is playing the Sri Lanka leg of the schedule. After the conclusion of this series, they will head to South Africa for a full tour.

Virat Kohli had noted that the space of only two weeks is definitely not enough for the players to recover and get back to the drawing board for a tough tour like South Africa. And now, Vinod Rai has empathized with him on the same note as well.

“I totally empathise with Kohli. That is a fact. What we recognise as (Future Tour Programme (FTP) has been drawn up such that all the state associations get chances to conduct matches, which means they get chance to generate revenue. And unfortunately it is the players from whom these revenue comes and their interests are not taken care of,” quoted Vinod Rai as per the quotes in Hindustan Times.

On the coach fiasco

Vinod Rai also made a comment on the infamous coach fiasco that the Indian cricket witnessed this year. Anil Kumble had made an unceremonious exit from the position this year. The CAC, that was appointed by the board, and comprised on Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, and VVS Laxman, then appointed Ravi Shastri as the head coach. Vinod Rai feels that the system of working of the BCCI needs reforms big time.

“There is no system in BCCI on how a coach should be appointed but I think the move to set up the CAC is good. CAC made the decision of choosing the coach last year. They had selected somebody but unfortunately it was not accepted by BCCI. Then they recommended Anil Kumble for two years but then BCCI said ‘no no’, it is for one year,” he quoted.

“It is not a bad idea to be setting a set of standards. I believe BCCI is very insular body. Any thing happened in BCCI never came out in the public. Now if you are throwing BCCI open to public it is good,” Rai conceded.