India will be playing 12 Test matches in the next financial year according to the Future Tours Programme and only two of those Tests will come at home, both against the West Indies.
Interestingly, India may not be playing any Test matches when they tour New Zealand early next year. They are slated to play four Tests, three ODIs and three T20Is in Australia, before flying out to New Zealand for five ODIs and five T20Is.
“There is a lot of risk of losing money in a five-day game starting at 3 am India time (in New Zealand). Anyway, it will be a World Cup year by the time India travel to New Zealand. India will be playing just white-ball cricket after the Tests in Australia get over till the World Cup in England arrives. India will host Australia after they come back from New Zealand and will travel to Zimbabwe for three T20Is before the 2019 IPL,” a senior BCCI official in the know of things told TOI.
The Supreme Court-appointed committee of administrators (CoA) had announced in December that they are looking to cut the number of playing days in a year without looking to reducing the number of matches. Not playing Tests in New Zealand is a step in that direction.
“The other boards understand the opportunity of the IPL. They all want their players to be available. In the FTP from 2019, there's virtually no or very little international cricket during that period in the calendar. Our endeavour is to overcome even that little international cricket. That is testimony to the strength of the IPL,” Johri had told TOI, about little to no international cricket during the IPL in 2019.
BCCI projections for coming financial year shows that IPL will earn a surplus of Rs 2,017 crore, while the rest of the board’s operations - international fixtures as well as domestic - will contribute barely Rs 125 crore to its surplus. This means the IPL will now contribute 95% of board’s surplus.
BCCI will make 16 times more profit during the 45-day IPL window than it is likely to in the remaining 320 days of the year. This net surplus will accumulate after BCCI’s spending on the game’s infrastructure and other heads, amounting to approximately Rs 1,272 crore against an income of Rs 3,413 crore.
In the current year, IPL is expected to supply 60 percent of BCCI’s overall surplus of a little under Rs 670 crore. Now, thanks to the five-year mega media rights deal worth Rs 16,347 crore with Star India, IPL is going to bring in a surplus of Rs 2017 crore as compared to Rs 400 crore in the last financial year.
Based on the Future Tours Programme, the board will see a trivial plunge of Rs 5 crore in the surplus from the men’s team’s international tours, leading to a sizeable drop of Rs 78 crore in income from media rights alone.
