BCCI Will Not Conduct Inquiry into India’s Tour of England; India Not Playing Too Much Cricket

Despite the shambles that was India’s tour of England, the BCCI is not interested in an Don Argus type review or inquiry. However, hopefully the BCCI has made a few notes of its own in light of the fact that the Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led Indian team came home without a single win.

Amit Mishra

One of the first issues addressed by the new BCCI President, N. Srinivasan, was not only the subject matter of his supposed conflict of interest in the IPL with the Chennai Super Kings but also, about the state of affairs of Indian cricket. with is appointment coinciding with the return of the beleaguered Indian team that returned home with their tail between their legs after the England tour, the BCCI president chose to be the voice of restraint. But hopefully that is not how the BCCI will go about addressing pertinent issues that cropped up as a result of the tour.

Srinivasan was quick to dismiss the idea that the Indian cricketers were playing too much cricket, particularly with the addition of the IPL, stating that professional cricketers across cricket playing nations were playing rough the same amount of cricket in the year. The matter came up in light of the fact that several Indian cricketers picked up injuries during or before the tour that greatly impacted their presence as well as their performance.

Furthermore while he felt that the loss has stung, he was not willing to submit the Indian cricket to an in depth inquiry or post mortem as it were into what went wrong on the England tour. While Australian cricket went through an independent inquiry under Don Argus, that the Indian cricket did not quite need such a treatment stems from the fact that before the tour of England, India were the no.1 Test team and has recently won the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. The absence of a win on the tour of England although worrisome did not call for an overhaul of personnel as it did of the thought process on the part of the people who run the sport in the country.

With next to no warm up or conditioning camp, little time between itineraries, lack of rotation of players with intention of succession and grooming, these are several factors that the BCCI needs to address directly rather than expect the Indian cricket to automatically pull up its socks. In that sense the inquiry would have been a waste because the BCCI needs to look into its own manner on working, scheduling cricket itineraries as well as assessing the selection criteria and fitness assessment in order to not only progress towards player and injury management but also to ensure that only the genuinely fit players are included on such important tours. For that it is the BCCI that needs to perhaps do more introspection themselves in order to find out why the Indian cricket team could not bring itself to raise its own efforts in such a high profile bilateral series with so much at stake. Although Srinivasan was willing to show a softer understanding that defeat was part of the game, if the BCCI take the same light approach, one cannot expect things to change much in Indian cricket.