In a bid to promote Test cricket, BCCI secretary Jay Shah announced the 'Test Cricket Incentive Scheme' for the senior men's team last week, which will give players extra incentive other than the usual match fees for taking part in the traditional format of the game.
According to the scheme, cricketers who play seven or more Tests in a season (assuming 9 Tests in a season) will get a match fee of Rs 45 lakh. A non-playing member will receive Rs 22.5 lakh per match.
Those who play five or six Tests in a season will get Rs 30 lakh per match and a non-playing member will receive Rs 15 lakh. However, the scheme will not be applicable to players who play less than four Tests in a season.
Amid the recent development, batting legend Sunil Gavaskar has urged the BCCI to introduce a similar reward in domestic cricket, saying it would encourage more players to participate.
“I think what Rahul Dravid said, when it was announced in Dharamsala, that he would like to call it a reward,” Gavaskar told reporters on the sidelines of an event, marking the completion of 25 years of The Champs Foundation.
“That is a wonderful thing by the BCCI to reward those who would be playing but I would also request the BCCI to ensure that the feeder to the Test team, which is the Ranji Trophy, that is also looked after.
“(If) the Ranji Trophy fees can be doubled or tripled, certainly there’ll be a lot more people playing the Ranji Trophy, (and a) lot less pull outs from the Ranji Trophy, because if the fees of playing a Ranji Trophy match is a good fee there will be less people pulling out for various reasons.
“They will all be wanting to play with the slab system every 10 first-class matches you get that much more, so I would request the BCCI to look at that aspect as well.”
Gavaskar also welcomed BCCI’s recent directives to have more frontline players participating in domestic cricket.
“It is something that everybody is aware of. It is something that should be looked up by every cricketer domestic cricket is actually how they have come up. If they hadn’t started at the domestic cricket level, be it the domestic T20, the domestic one-day tournament or the Ranji Trophy, they wouldn’t be where they are,” Gavaskar said.
“Very few cricketers (are there) who’ve actually come up from not having played domestic cricket, they always have played some domestic cricket, it could be junior cricket or U-19 cricket or something like that. That has to be something that every cricketer must never forget.”
The 74-year-old urged the BCCI to revisit the scheduling of the Ranji Trophy, which ran from a little over two months from January 5 to March 14 this season.
Recently, India and Mumbai all-rounder Shardul Thakur expressed concern over the Ranji Trophy schedule, saying that playing 10 matches with just three-day gaps between games could lead to injuries to players.
“That’s (a relook at the schedule) something that should be considered because you have to have a situation In the three-day gap what happens is that there’s probably a day in between in travel,” Gavaskar said.
“During travel, there’s no time to go to the physio and maybe take his help to get fit from a niggle. So, probably there should be a little bit of gap so that the player get adequate time,” he added.
According to Gavaskar, Ranji Trophy should be played from October to mid December followed by the white-ball tournaments.
“That way, everybody will be available to play except for the ones featuring for India. There will be no real excuse to pull out. With the one-dayers beginning from January, people who are in the IPL can have enough practice from then.”
While many cricket experts fear about the future of Test cricket, Gavaskar believes the longest format will continue to survive.
“Test cricket will definitely be around. You might not have a five-Test match series between every country, only two or three might play five-Tests. Any tour now will be a mix of Tests, T20Is and ODIs,” he remarked.
(With PTI Inputs)
