India’s White Ball Series Needed to Lift SL Out of Mess: BCCI

India's limited-overs tour of Sri Lanka is necessary to ensure that Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) makes up for the loss of revenue caused by last year's cancelled tour of the Island nation, the Indian cricket board treasurer Arun Dhumal has said.

India's tour of Sri Lanka in June last year was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which sent the entire Future Tours Programme (FTP) of the top cricketing countries haywire.

India's tour to Sri Lanka is coinciding with the national team's Test tour of England, comprising the World Test Championship final against New Zealand and a Test series against the host.

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"We had to miss Sri Lanka tour last year also. So, we need to work out on that. Since our team that is going to England is primarily for Tests, we could have made up (sic) a team for these white-ball matches. So, that is why we thought we should do our bit to make sure Sri Lankan board and we can play white-ball cricket in time," Dhumal was quoted as saying by Sportskeeda.

“These days every country wants to host the Indian team, comprising stars like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, for matches as they fetch handsome revenue through TV rights, sponsorships, and series branding etc.”

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The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) treasurer said that it is important for the teams to follow such a policy in future.

"See, as you know the cricket world is under tremendous pressure for the last one-and-a-half year given this Covid pandemic. A lot of FTP has been cancelled (sic), which has put a lot of strain on these associations all over the world. Until and unless you do these tours, we can't make up, and it would be very difficult for all these boards to come out of their financial struggle that they are going through," said Dhumal.

The selection committee is likely to pick the squad for the white ball series in Sri Lanka soon after the England-bound Test squad assembles in Mumbai.

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