During the BCCI conclave for captains and the coaches of the domestic teams held in Mumbai on Friday, J&K Cricket Association pitched for the early season matches in Kashmir.
In the meet JKCA was represented by the coach and captain of the teams and they put their suggestions forward. JKCA requested BCCI to allot early season domestic matches in Kashmir prior to the start of the winter months.
Normally BCCI used to keep matches in Kashmir during mid-winter season and teams both, hosts J&K and visitors were finding it hard to cope with the weather.
“For us the priority is to get early season matches in Kashmir so that we can take full benefit our home conditions. While making calendar for the domestic season, BCCI has not been taking into consideration weather of Kashmir and matches were mostly held during harsh mid winter season,” said JKCA official.
“This time we asked BCCI to take into consideration this particular issue so that J&K cricket would get benefited. The domestic season starts in September October and if we get our matches to host at that time it would be great for us. Otherwise BCCI used to award us matches to host in January or February which was making things difficult for us,” he said.
He said that JKCA also raised issue of timing of matches.
In the meet captains and coaches from all over country participated and they stressed on the introduction of Decision Review system in Ranji Trophy and doing away with the concept of coin toss.
DRS has been so far restricted to international cricket but the call to introduce it in domestic structure has grown following poor umpiring decisions in the last Ranji Trophy season, which saw a significant rise in the number of matches with the addition of new teams.
During the conclave, the captains and coaches called for the introduction of DRS with the available technology for televised (television and digital broadcast) Ranji Trophy games.
It was also discussed if knockout games of Ranji Trophy should be on home-and-away basis or at neutral venues.
To improve the standard of the games, suggestions were made regarding the “introduction of evaluation reports by Match Referees about umpires” and “evaluation of Match referees by the umpires.”
The issues related to the “quality of balls” used throughout the season and “slow over rates” were also discussed and suggestions were sought during the conclave. For suggestions to become a reality, the approval of the BCCI technical committee and then the ratification by the General Body is required.