Poor standard of umpiring in domestic cricket in focus at the BCCI Annual conclave

SG balls, poor umpiring and scheduling were discussed.

SG white ball | Twitter

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is contemplating about replacing the kookaburra ball with SG white for India's limited overs matches at home. As per reports in PTI, the matter was thoroughly discussed during the Annual Domestic Captain-Coaches' Conclave in Mumbai on Monday (March 12).

In India, the first-class matches, as well as the Test matches, are played with SG Test brand while kookaburra whites are used for the limited overs matches. However, just for the experimental basis, the Indian cricket board has used SG white for the Mushtaq Ali T20 and Vijay Hazare Trophy this season.

While the response wasn’t during Mushtaq Ali Trophy, the players were quite pleased with the quality during the Vijay Hazare Trophy.

"The matter was discussed with GM (Cricket Operations) Saba Karim. We could see Indian team using SG white for ODIs and T20s next season. The SG balls have a more pronounced seam and that's one of the factors," a BCCI official anonymously told PTI.

Besides the ball, the poor standard of umpiring was also discussed during the meeting.

"Most of the captains and coaches have had complaints about umpiring standards. There were a lot of debatable decisions given. In general, the standard of Indian umpires can be gauged by the fact that only Sundaram Ravi is there in the Elite Panel," he added.

There were a few in numbers who also requested for use of DRS in domestic matches but it was shot down. The structure of Ranji Trophy was also talked about in the meeting.

After this year’s Ranji Trophy, the teams have expressed their desire to go back to old three group format which gives them more matches at league stage. Earlier 28 teams used to be divided into three groups with one group having 10 teams and 9 each in two other groups, but this year seven teams were divided into four groups each with each team getting to play six matches.

 
 

By Salman Anjum - 13 Mar, 2018

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