BCCI Makes Roadmap To Keep Vaibhav Sooryavanshi And Co. 'Test Ready' After Five Big Home Defeats
After five home Test defeats against New Zealand and South Africa in 2024 and 2025 respectively, the BCCI's Centre of Excellence (COE), under VVS Laxman, has chalked out an elaborate roadmap
After five home Test defeats against New Zealand and South Africa in 2024 and 2025 respectively, the BCCI's Centre of Excellence (COE), under VVS Laxman, has chalked out an elaborate roadmap, with 'Gen Z' flagbearers such as Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Ayush Mhatre set to play four-day red-ball games in an intra-COE tournament in June-July. The aim of the intra-COE tournament, featuring 64 top young cricketers-all aged under 25-is to identify and create a supply chain to refurbish India's red-ball talent for the next decade.
It is understood that all coaches and national selectors-senior, pathways (India A, India U-23) and age-group (U-19, U-16)-associated with the Centre of Excellence have been expressly told that the focus over the next year at most High Performance Camps in Bengaluru will be on getting the red-ball talent pool back on track, keeping both the near and distant future in mind.
"The India Emerging side will comprise only U-25 players, and they will also constitute India A teams for shadow tours. The roadmap will be created keeping senior chairman of selectors Ajit Agarkar and head coach Gautam Gambhir in the loop," a BCCI source told PTI on condition of anonymity.
"Once the IPL ends, India U-19 and Emerging (U-25) teams will both tour Sri Lanka for four-day games. The squads will be selected based on intra-COE tournament performances."
How would teams be selected?
The plan is to select 64 cricketers, who will then be divided into four squads of 16 each. Each team will play two four-day red-ball games at the COE, with different pitch conditions on offer to provide proper match practice.
Of the 64, 25 cricketers (U-23) will be selected by the junior selection committee headed by S. Sharath, comprising players who have performed well in the Cooch Behar Trophy (U-19) and CK Nayudu Trophy (U-23) red-ball events.
Another 25 cricketers (U-23 and U-25) will be selected by the senior selection committee from among players who have performed in the Ranji Trophy, Vijay Hazare Trophy and Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT) but are not part of the Indian Premier League.
Apart from these 50 cricketers, there will be another 14 players-mainly young prospects-who are part of the IPL, including the likes of Mhatre, Sooryavanshi and Sameer Rizvi, among others. These players will complete the list of 64, provided all are fit and available.
"The idea is to select 25 players after the intra-COE tournament, and this core group of cricketers will represent both the Emerging side and India A on shadow tours. The BCCI brass and Team India management are quite clear-even for the U-19s, the focus over the next year has to be on red-ball cricket," the source said.
India Cricket Team