Dharamsala to host Test

Mumbai, June 9 

Six new Test centres, including Dharamsala and Ranchi, will host Test matches for the first time during a packed home season for the Indian cricket team.

The Indian team will play 13 Test matches, eight One-Day Internationals and three T20 Internationals in the coming home season, beginning with the New Zealand series in September.

Dharamsala, Rajkot, Vizag, Pune, Ranchi and Indore, upgraded as Test centres in November last year, will host five-day matches for the first time, BCCI secretary Ajay Shirke said in a statement.

The new centres would host Tests against New Zealand, England, Australia and Bangladesh, the BCCI announced after the meeting of its Tour Programmes and Fixtures Committee here today.

The home season will start with three Test matches and five ODIs against New Zealand followed by five Test matches, three ODIs and as many T20Is against England.

Australia are to visit India in February-March next year to play four Test matches, while Bangladesh is slated to play one Test in India for the first time since the country got Test status.

Mohali will host a Test against New Zealand and one against England.

The Duleep Trophy, which was not held in 2015-16, is set to be played under lights with the pink ball for the first time.

Eden frontrunner to host day-night Test

Kolkata: The iconic Eden Gardens has emerged as the frontrunner to host the first ever day-night Test match in the country against the visiting New Zealand side. “Nothing has been confirmed yet. Hosting a day-night Test will depend on the success of the Duleep Trophy,” CAB president Sourav Ganguly said. 

“We are also organising the country’s first day-night four-day match with pink balls from June 18-21 on an experimental basis. We will see how it goes.” — PTI

Thakur power sweeps aside local problems

dharamsala: Dharamsala has become a Test venue because of the efforts of HPCA president Anurag Thakur, the HPCA today said. Thakur is also the president of the Indian cricket board (BCCI). In the past too, all BCCI presidents or influential officials have tried to promote the venues in their home associations. Thus venues like Nagpur and Mohali became important when their top officials were influential in BCCI. Conversely, when officials were out of favour – N Srinivasan of Tamil Nadu or Jagmohan Dalmiya of West Bengal, for instance – their home associations stopped getting important matches. In the past, the Dharamsala stadium had hosted ODI and T20I matches, apart from the IPL games, but the lack of five-star accommodation had prevented HPCA from getting the Test status. HPCA, thus, constructed its own hotel – Pavilion Hotel – that can house two teams. Observers say that the stadium had other drawbacks, including the lack of parking space, low seating capacity and non-availability of an international airport in the region. But now that Thakur is heading BCCI, these issues have been swept aside. There’s one critical issue, though – the state government has filed a case against HPCA for constructing the hotel. The present government has maintained that the land was allotted to HPCA for a sports hostel, not a hotel. HPCA, though, says that since it’s paying a commercial lease amount for the land, it has the right to operate a hotel there. Sources in HPCA say that the association wanted to hand over the operations of Pavilion Hotel to ITC Hotels, but this plan has been put on hold because the matter is sub judice. — TNS