BCCI might scale down India's tour of South Africa

What's the story?

The India tour of South Africa scheduled for later this year may witness its span being cut short. According to the Future Tours Programme, India will tour South Africa to play four Tests and seven ODIs which is entrained to begin in the second week of December.

However, the timetable has its own share of doubts associated with it as the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has expressed their wish to host a tri-series involving New Zealand and Bangladesh before the team departs. This might lead to a delay in the series which will force alterations in the summer schedule of Cricket South Africa (CSA).

“We want to have our own season before the team departs,” said an official from the Board to the Indian Express telling further that the BCCI is, however, determined to prevent the tour from being trimmed. “There are still five months left, and we can always make a change here and there, but this tour won't be reduced. We've given the commitment, and that will not change. It's just scheduling we want to work on.”

In case you didn't know...

BCCI has prioritised Team India's active participation in games till December to ensure maximised revenues from every season since 2015. In the year 2016, the Indian team did not make any tour abroad post the West Indies tour in August.

This year's South Africa tour was scheduled long back but BCCI's intentions of hosting the tri-series before the tour may delay their travel. Earlier, BCCI had reduced India's tour to South Africa in 2013 owing to the disaccord between the two boards.

The heart of the matter

CSA has not issued any schedule for the series till now and it is anticipated that both the boards are aware of the problems that will arise due to the alterations made in the schedule. On one hand, BCCI wants to make optimum use of the season whereas CSA is definitely not willing to entertain any factor that can disturb their schedule especially with regards to their Global T20 League.

Australia is also scheduled to tour South Africa after India's visit. In case BCCI meddles with the dates it will create new troubles for CSA. Reports suggest that India and South Africa will commence the series with a Test match on 26^th December followed by three Tests and a limited overs match in January. The number of Tests may not be reduced after the recognition of this series as the Freedom Series by International Cricket Council (ICC) in 2015.

What's next?

The final schedule of India's tour of South Africa will be announced soon. If there is any delay in the start of the series or it gets trimmed, CSA will have to make a lot of changes to avoid over-exertion of their players.

Author's take

Both BCCI and CSA will not be in favour of introducing changes to the plan. However, both these boards are eyeing different goals which translate to their targets for the season. BCCI wants an active season to attain maximised revenue. CSA, on the other hand, is focused on successfully hosting the first edition of their domestic T20 league for their summer cricket. Making changes will leave CSA in a quandary as they will struggle to strike the balance between the international and the domestic cricket.

Hence, BCCI can work with CSA to determine the things that can be avoided on mutual grounds and drop them off the list for the next five months. This will assure that the timetable for the Freedom series and the following games will neither cause trouble for CSA in scheduling their major events nor will the revenue figures disappoint BCCI.