The Indian cricket board (BCCI) will be looking at some major issues when the apex council meets on Sunday to discuss India's Future Tours Programme (FTP) for the 2023-2031 as one of its agenda.

The big issue for discussion will be a bigger window for the IPL in 2022, which will have two extra teams, taking the total count to 10 teams. There are indications that the market forces have been trying to convince BCCI to have longer IPL for a couple of years.

"BCCI is looking to stretch the length of the tournament. And now, with two teams slated to be added from 2022, the IPL is set to get longer. BCCI would not want to compromise on the quality of the tournament due to unavailability of the overseas players," a senior BCCI official told TOI.

The BCCI was supposed to add two new teams starting 2021 IPL, but with the 2020 edition of IPL happening just six months before, the short time window made it quite difficult for the franchises and the board itself to organize a big auction.

IPL 2021: BCCI draws up player retention process; teams need to submit list by January 20

The idea was then to add one team in this edition and another in the 2022 IPL edition, but finally the decision was made to have the 2021 IPL with 8 teams.

The 2022 IPL will see two more franchises being added, taking the total team count to 10. This will also mean a longer IPL and hence the talks for a bigger window.

Over the last three years, BCCI had managed to get all boards and the International Cricket Council (ICC) on board and have an IPL which didn't overlap with much of international fixtures.

Apart from this, the apex council will also discuss ways to conduct this season’s Ranji Trophy tournament, and also resume women’s cricket as well. The board is likely to start the women's domestic tournaments in Feb-March, followed by international fixtures.

(Times of India inputs)