Miffed COA puts on hold BCCI move to conduct day-night Test in October

Bengaluru, February 23: Vinod Rai, head of Supreme Court appointed Committee Of Advisors, slammed BCCI secretary Amitabh Choudhary for proposing a day/night Test between India and the West Indies in October and asked BCCI to put the decision on hold.

Choudhary consulted head coach Ravi Shastri, BCCI president CK Khanna, CEO Rahul Johri, treasurer Anirudh Chaudhary and operations manager Gaurav Saxena through email but excluded COA members from the trail mail.

COA overrules BCCI

In the mail, Choudhary noted that the low attendance for Test matches in India in 2017 prompted him to initiate such a step. But the step has not gone down well with Rai who in a sharply worded letter - in possession of Mykhel.com, questioned BCCI secretary of talking policy decision without consulting the COA.

"You seem to have discussed with all the stakeholders, who in your scheme of things constitute four persons sitting in the (BCCI) cricket centre - a very misplaced viewpoint.

"Even if it be cricket of which all of you certainly have greater knowledge than me, (I'm excluding Diana (Edulji, former India women skipper), who has greater knowledge than all of you! I represent the viewing population. They are your greatest stakeholder," wrote Rai.

In fact, Shastri supported the idea of the day/night Test suggesting a noon start. However, the Shastri endorsing the day/night Test seemed to have no effect on Rai. Shastri had also suggested being smart in venue selection for Tests with Tier 2 cities getting marked for Tier 2 teams.

Rai said the players needed to be consulted before taking such steps because eventually they needed to adjust to a format hitherto not played by them.

In that light, Rai wrote: "The issue (day/night Test) is placed on hold. It does not go out of cricket centre_till: We work out a whole process with venue thrown in - exact timing incl. security arrangement over five days in the same venue and the cost of the same to BCCI/State Assn. We then consult the guest team. We need to factor in their viewpoints."