BCCI pushes for wider gaps between internationals in next FTP cycle

The BCCI will send its operations team to a Dubai workshop on the Future Tours Programme, where it plans to push for wider gaps between international matches. The move follows concerns over player workload and injuries caused by demanding schedules

New Delhi: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will send its operations team to a workshop on the Future Tours Programme (FTP) as part of its bid to widen the gap between international matches.

The Indian Board recently confirmed that it has instructed its FTP personnel to schedule matches so that players can get proper rest after several players suffered injuries due to gruelling schedules.

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According to a Cricbuzz report, a workshop on the FTP is scheduled to take place in Dubai on 22 and 23 September, and the BCCI will send its operations team to the meeting to discuss the international FTP matches for 2027-31. Meanwhile, operations teams from all other boards are expected to attend the meeting, and representatives from the top eight Associate members will be invited.

Speaking after a meeting with the BCCI CoE head VVS Laxman, India head coach Gautam Gambhir and captains Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer, BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia confirmed the instruction given to the FTP personnel.

“We have instructed our FTP personnel, who will be meeting very soon in various international forums, that our FTP should be scheduled in such a way that it should be scheduled that there is proper rest for the players as well as some kind of acclimatisation through friendly matches before any major series in SENA countries,” Saikia said after the meeting on Thursday.

The recent injuries to Indian players have sparked this debate. Players such as Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, and B. Sai Sudharsan missed recent tours despite initial conditional selections due to various injuries.

For the upcoming T20I series against Afghanistan, the BCCI has named a full-strength squad; however, the participation of players such as Bumrah, Sundar, Reddy and Harshit Rana is ‘subject to fitness’ due to fitness concerns.

Saikia noted the injuries, highlighting the short turnarounds between tournaments as a key factor. “Individual players are having injuries because they have to play a lot of matches. If you look at their schedule, in England, we had a 15-player team go for the ODIs, and out of that, three or four players got injured during the match. We have to think that they had played two months of IPL before that.

“So all this takes a toll on the health of the players. To avoid those kinds of situations under the present window and FTPs, we are trying to find out some ways to tackle it,” Saikia added.

Meanwhile, the report also noted that the next international calendar could see more multilateral games, a tradition that has become far less common. India’s last multilateral series came in 2018, when they played in the T20I Nidahas Trophy.

Moreover, India last hosted a multilateral tournament in 2003-04, when they hosted Australia and New Zealand. India featured in three multilateral ODI series since the 2011 World Cup – in Australia with Sri Lanka as the third side in 2011-12, in the West Indies with Sri Lanka as the other side in 2013, and in Australia in 2014-15 with England as the other side.

This is to attract more eyeballs, as the importance of bilateral series has been declining.