New Delhi: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has offered to play two extra T20 internationals in England next year following the last-minute cancellation of the fifth Test in Manchester due to Covid concerns.
According to a Daily Mail report, “However, the offer — designed to help ease a potential shortfall of 40 million pounds in English cricket’s already stretched budget — would be instead of, not as well as, the rescheduled Test. The offer of a rescheduled Test still stands.”
It may depend on whether the various broadcasters, who paid 25 million pounds for the rights to the Old Trafford Test, would be willing to settle for two evenings’ cricket rather than five full days.
“There is also the question of corporate hospitality, tickets, and food and drink, with the potential earnings from a full Test match — over 10m pounds for the Manchester game — far in excess of what a pair of T20s could generate,” the report added.
India will be back in England next summer for three T20 and three one-day internationals, all squeezed into the first fortnight in July.
Meanwhile, there is still confusion over the result of the Test series, which India led 2-1 before the ‘cancelled’ game. The ECB has written to the world cricket governing body (ICC) to decide the fate of the cancelled fifth Test at Old Trafford.
The series-deciding Manchester encounter was called off after a Covid-19 outbreak in the Indian camp; forcing its senior players to express their apprehensions to both the BCCI and ECB on going ahead with the match.
It is learnt that the ECB wants the ICC’s Dispute Resolution Committee to address the issue and expect that a forfeiture would be granted so that they can claim insurance as they are going to lose approximately 40 million pounds if the match is declared abandoned due to Covid-19 and India will win the series 2-1. But if England get a forfeiture as per the DRC ruling, it will be a 2-2 verdict and the host nation can also claim insurance.
However, till Sunday the ICC officials had said they haven’t received any such mail from the ECB as yet.
