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The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has confirmed that an Indian team will tour Sri Lanka for a short white ball series in July. An office-bearer of the BCCI has endorsed what president Sourav Ganguly indicated on Monday (May 10). "We have planned a white ball series for the senior men's team during the month of July where they will play T20 Internationals and ODIs in Sri Lanka," Ganguly told PTI and the office-bearer confirmed that an Indian team of white ball specialists will play three ODIs and three T20Is in the island nation.
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With the likes of Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw, Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, all internationals available, the Indian selectors have sufficient depth to field a strong team for the series in which it can be confirmed that those who would be in England will not take part. There is also some talk that Rahul Dravid and his staff at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) will be asked to accompany the group as coaches. The office-bearer did not rule out that possibility either.
But the move has raised a larger question of two teams playing at two different corners of the world which was first envisaged by James Sutherland, a former CEO of Cricket Australia (CA). "While hosting Tests here, Australia could have its Twenty20 team touring somewhere else. It is difficult not to see a generation of players coming through with an eye to becoming Twenty20 specialists. As more Twenty20 cricket is played there are clearly opportunities for players to choose to be specialists," Sutherland had told the Australian media in 2010. When contacted on Tuesday in the context of the BCCI fielding dual teams, Sutherland said he always saw it coming. "This was inevitable," he told Cricbuzz.
It is not unprecedented that two Indian teams would be at two different countries. In 1998, India had fielded one team for the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur and one for the Sahara Cup in Canada. More recently, an Australian white ball team had travelled to New Zealand while its Test side was to visit South Africa. That the Test series was cancelled because of Covid situation is a different point. Last summer, an English side took on Ireland in a three-match white ball series which was sandwiched between the first and second Tests featuring England and West Indies.
The dual team issue has brought to the fore an important debate if the International Cricket Council (ICC) should create a parallel Future Tours Programme (FTP), one specifically for the red ball games. More so because there are 20 countries under the ICC with ODI status, including members like the Netherlands, Oman, Scotland, Nepal, UAE, Namibia, United States and Papua New Guinea. These countries hardly play the bigger nations.
"The FTP is cluttered," said Sutherland joining the topic and pointed out the value of the Indian team and the difficulty of other nations' ability to field two national teams. "International cricket is highly valuable for the host nation...and India's team is the most sought after (and the busiest) in the world. (I'm) not sure that many other countries could field more than one team -- but India have the talent and depth, perhaps England and Australia too could," Sutherland observed.
Ramiz Raja, a former Pakistan captain and also a former CEO of the PCB who was once involved in drafting the ICC FTP, was guarded, stating that all countries may not be capable of fielding two national sides while Haroon Lorgat, a former CEO of ICC who had overseen many FTP drafting, thought the parallel calendar could be a way forward for the game.
Lorgat has felt that the challenge here is to retain the fan base of the teams. "There is an increasing likelihood (of two FTPs) as the sport grows and players choose to specialise, that different red and white ball national teams will play at the same time. The challenge will be around retaining or growing fan and commercial interests," the veteran Cape Town-based administrator said.
"I would wait and watch," Raja told Cricbuzz cautious that the Test format should not be tested further. "To have FTP of white ball cricket and run it simultaneously with Test FTP, teams would need to churn out a spread of vast talent which, barring two or three countries, may be a bit difficult right now. Also pitting Test cricket against white ball cricket is going to further put pressure on Test cricket."
One school of thought is that a white ball FTP could give boost to the ODI Super League that the ICC started last year. At this stage it has only 13 teams - 12 Full Members and one Associate Member (Netherlands). The Super League cannot be expanded because the Full Members are mostly busy. The second FTP, in future, could enable an England team taking on a Namibia or an Indian team clashing with Papua New Guinea which could lead to the spread of the game.
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