Legendary India captain Kapil Dev feels that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) isn’t doing enough for its players considering the hectic World Cup schedule. The 1983 World Cup-winning captain Kapil pointed out that India will be playing their group stage matches at 9 different venues. The World Cup schedule has already been announced but the BCCI is expected to make some changes in it in the coming days which was confirmed by the board secretary Jay Shah.
“India is playing 11 matches and the amount of travelling they have to do…Who made that fixture?”, said Dev in an interview with The Week.
Dev was seemingly frustrated with the imbalanced travel schedule as he said, “You are going to Dharmashala, then to Bengaluru, to Kolkata… playing in nine different places”.
The legendary all-rounder further stated that the BCCI should provide the players the required facilities including chartered flights to travel during the World Cup.
ICC World Cup fixtures scheduled for later this year were announced on June 27. India’s first clash will see them taking on the current World Test Champions, Australia on October 8. The game shall be held at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. The team’s second fixture against Afghanistan will see them travel back to Delhi before facing arch-rivals Pakistan at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. All of these fixtures will take place within a week from October 8 to 15. Upon seeing the hectic schedule, Dev felt that the board has to “improve” as they aren’t doing enough to get the best performance out of their players.
However, he is confident about India’s chances at the World Cup, despite the team losing back-to-back semi-finals in 2015 and 2019 showpiece events.
When asked about India’s 10-year ICC trophy drought, the former skipper said, “We are still playing well…we are reaching the finals, the semifinals.”
Kapil Dev believes that the team just has to cross the “final hurdle” to win trophies. The 2023 World Cup is set to start on October 5 with the last edition’s finalists England and New Zealand squaring off against each other. It would be interesting to see if the Rohit Sharma-led side would finally be able to end their decade-long ICC trophy drought at home.
India started their WC preparations on the right note with a 2-1 series win over West Indies. The team management rested senior stars Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma to test the bench strength as players like Ishan Kishan and Sanju Samson shine with the bat for them on the Caribbean tour.
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