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India to play triangular in end-July

Trust the BCCI to never miss a bet when it comes to scheduling -- just when you thought that with no cricket in the immediate offing, coach Anshuman Gaikwad and physio Andrews Kokinos could hold the conditioning and coaching camp they have been desperately asking for, the board goes and lets Indian in for another tournament.

The Malaysian cricket authorities invited India to take part in a triangular at Kuala Lumpur from July 25 to August 2, and India has promptly accepted.

Participating alongside India will be the West Indies and Zimbabwe.

The tournament is being viewed as a dress rehearsal for the Commonwealth Games in September, to be held at the same venue. Cricket for the first time will debut at the Games, as a medal sport.

What this means is that India will go to KL, play the triangular, fly back, then fly there again for the tournament proper.

The scehduling is doubly strange, given recent statements by board secretary J Y Lele.

Asked how he could resolve the mixup arising out of India being booked to play both the Games and the Sahara Cup, both scheduled for the same time frame, Lele said that the board would send an A team for the Games, since it was not an ICC-acknowledged tournament.

Hauled up sharply by the organisers who reminded Lele that the Games had in fact received official one day status from the ICC, Lele promptly backtracked and said he was referring to the pre-Games triangular which the Malaysian board was planning to hold in order to test the pitches and grounds that will host the cricket competition during the C Games.

That tournament, he said, could do with an A team. Begs the question -- why then is the senior squad being booked to play there?

The one line answer, of course, is that this is in keeping with the Jagmohan Dalmiya philosphy of keeping associate nations happy by making the Indian side play wherever they are invited to -- and if that kind of scheduling means there is no time for coaching/conditioning camps, tough.

The Indian squad for the tournament, as also the A team that will tour Holland to play three-day and one-day ties with the hosts and with Denmark, will be picked at New Delhi on July 11.

Agencies