Vijay Merchant Trophy: State associations in a fix after BCCI advances tournament to October

The BCCIs decision to advance the Vijay Merchant Trophy has come as a blow for state associations — The BCCI's decision to advance the Vijay Merchant Trophy has come as a blow for state associations

Bengaluru, July 26: The BCCI decision to advance the Vijay Merchant Trophy (Under-16) for 2018-19 season has caught almost every state associations unaware and they have expressed their difficulties in conducting the tournament and asked for a possible postponement.

The Vijay Merchant Trophy that normally starts in December has been advanced to October 3 and the associations said they even do not have enough time to conduct the age verification programme ahead of the event. As per the BCCI diktat, the state associations will have to conduct the age proof test in the second week of September and the players need to enroll themselves 15 days prior to the test.

To make the matters worse, the state associations have received the BCCI letter in this direction only on July 16, cramping them for space to conduct test as well as for the preparation of venues for the matches.

"The problems are aplenty for us. There will be some 25 players from each state associations wanting to enroll for the age verification programme (AVP) making the overall number of players across the country to roughly 800. The BCCI wants the test to be done and the result to be sent to their AVP department by second week of September. The tournament starts on October 3 and it is a very short span for such an important work.

Moreover, we also need to prepare the venues well ahead of the tournament amid the age verification process and it's really strenous. And we have to consider the Monsoon effect too as rain can slow down ground preparation. And the players will also be at the receiving end of this exercise.

"If a players fails the test, rest assured, he will miss the tournament as the time is too short for him to take another test and try to make it to the tournament. So, we request the BCCI to postpone the tournament in the interest of all stakeholders," a state association official told MyKhel.

It has been reported that the Kerala Cricket Association (KCA) and the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) have already written letters to the BCCI expressing the practical difficulties of such a short time span and asking the governing body to schedule the tournament for November or December.