BCCI snubs England over venues
ECB prefers traditional centres with better accommodation

NEW DELHI—India’s cricket Chiefs have rejected England’s request for better venues when Michael Vaughan’s team tours the country next March-April.
The itinerary drawn up by the Indian board has Tests in Ahmedabad, Nagpur and Mumbai and seven one-dayers in outposts like Goa, Indore, Guwahati, Faridabad, Cuttack, Cochin and Visakhapatnam.
England, although satisfied with Mumbai, preferred to play other matches in traditional centres like New Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata which have enough hotels to accommodate the large media contingent and fans expected for the tour.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) declined to change venues, saying it was a long-standing policy to rotate international matches among the 21 venues dotted across the country.
There is no question of a change in venues,” said BCCI joint-secretary Gautam Dasgupta after meeting England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) official John Carr and players’ representative Richard Bevan in Kolkata.
“We have many centres in India who all want to host international matches. You just can’t ignore them”.
To add to England’s woes, two three-day practice matches ahead of the Test series were on Thursday pencilled in for Jamshedpur and Agartala, towns without luxury hotels.
Jamshedpur, an industrial town in the eastern state of Jharkhand, hosted the last of its nine one-dayers against Pakistan in April.
Agartala, in the country’s volatile northeast, has never hosted an international match.
A one-day practice match before the seven limited-overs games will be played in the northern hill resort of Dharamshala, better known as the home of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.
“We have a policy to promote remote centres like Agartala and Dharamshala, hence the matches there,” said Dasgupta.
ECB’s Carr declined to comment on the schedule.
The final itinerary will be released soon, Dasgupta said. The Tests will be played from March 8-12, March 16-20 and March 25-29 and the one-dayers on April 4,7, 10, 13, 16, 19 and 22.
Criticism in the British media that playing in smaller centres will inconvenience both the team and the accompanying party of journalists and fans was scoffed at by another BCCI official.
“England have played in India in the recent past. Where were the supporters? We did not see any,” he said.
“Agartala has a wonderful stadium and world-class facilities for the players and the media. It was time to give it an international match”.
England’s only hope of getting venues changed may lie in the outcome of BCCI’s annual elections on November 29-30 where incumbent president Ranbir Singh Mahendra, a protege of former world cricket chief Jagmohan Dalmiya, faces a stiff contest from heavyweight politician Sharad Pawar.
Pawar’s supporters like former BCCI chiefs Raj Singh Dungarpur and Inderjit Bindra are known to enjoy better relations with the ECB than Dalmiya.—Agencies