BCCI Pushes for Better Player Preparation in Future Tours Programme
The Board of Control for Cricket in India is pushing for a fundamental tweak to how India tours the world. Less grind, more preparation. Especially when it comes to the old problem areas: SENA conditions.
With the next Future Tours Programme (FTP) cycle looming, the BCCI has decided it wants time – not just fixtures – built into the calendar.
“There are too many matches in the year, and that is why, in the next FTP, we will do certain things and take certain measures,” BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia said on Thursday, after a review meeting of the Indian team. The message to the board’s scheduling team is clear: protect the players, and give them a chance to adjust before the big away battles.
Acclimatisation, Not Just Arrival
For years, India’s tours to South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia have been shadowed by the same lament: not enough warm-ups, not enough time in local conditions. The BCCI now wants that built into the blueprint.
“We have instructed our FTP people, who will be meeting very soon at various international forums, that our FTP should be scheduled in such a way that there is proper rest for the players, as well as some kind of acclimatisation or friendly matches before any major series in SENA countries,” Saikia said.
That instruction will be tested almost immediately.
A workshop on the FTP is set for Dubai on September 22 and 23, with operations teams from all member boards in attendance. The 2027-31 international calendar will be the battleground. The BCCI’s representatives will walk into those meetings knowing the window is narrow and the demands are heavy. Even the top eight Associate nations have been invited, underlining how crowded and complex the global calendar has become.
A Calendar Already Crammed
The next cycle is not a blank sheet. It’s a jigsaw.
India are due to host England for five Tests at the start of 2028, then head to Australia at the end of that same year. The return legs are already pencilled in: India touring England, tentatively in 2029, and hosting Australia in 2031.
Layered on top are ICC events. The T20 World Cup lands in Australia and New Zealand in 2028. The Champions Trophy comes to India in 2029. Another T20 World Cup follows in 2030 across England, Scotland and Ireland. The ODI World Cup returns to the subcontinent in 2031, co-hosted by India and Bangladesh.
Then there is the World Test Championship. India are expected to travel to South Africa and West Indies, and to host Sri Lanka and one more side in that period. Those commitments will chew up weeks at a time.
Finding “proper rest” and “acclimatisation” in that maze will not be straightforward. But the BCCI has built its reputation on getting its way in global scheduling rooms. This will be another test of that clout.
Multilateral Cricket Back in Vogue?
While India wrestle with rest and preparation, another conversation is bubbling under the surface: the shape of the international product itself.
Cricbuzz understands that the next international calendar could feature more multilateral tournaments. Among several boards, the feeling is growing that bilateral cricket is losing its edge – and its financial punch. Multinational events, by contrast, are seen as a stronger commercial play.
Tri-series and quadrangulars once dotted the calendar. Now they are almost museum pieces. At present, a T20I tri-series in Namibia – involving the hosts, South Africa and Zimbabwe – is one of the rare examples still standing.
Since the 2019 World Cup, there has been just one ODI tri-series: New Zealand, South Africa and Pakistan, played as a lead-up to the 2025 Champions Trophy. That’s how scarce they’ve become.
India’s own history with such events tells a story. Since the 2011 World Cup, India have featured in only four multilateral tournaments of that kind. There was the 2011-12 tri-series in Australia with Sri Lanka as the third team. Another followed in 2013 in the West Indies, again with Sri Lanka involved. A tri-series in Australia in 2014-15 added England to the mix.
The most recent was the Nidahas Trophy in 2018 in Sri Lanka, a T20I event involving Bangladesh and the hosts, remembered most vividly for Dinesh Karthik’s last-ball six to win the final for India. The first three were ODIs; Nidahas broke the pattern in the shortest format.
The Asia Cup also sits in the multilateral bracket, but it occupies its own lane. It is an Asian Cricket Council property, not a BCCI-owned event, and follows a different commercial logic.
India’s Dilemma: Star Power vs Economics
Here lies the crux for Indian administrators. Multilateral tournaments typically belong to the host board. They carry the risk and the reward. In India’s case, matches not involving the home side do not command the same value in the market. That dilutes the appeal of hosting such events purely for profit.
It goes some way to explaining why India have not staged a multilateral tournament of their own since the TVS Cup in 2003-04, which featured Australia and New Zealand. For over two decades, the BCCI has preferred the certainty and scale of bilateral series anchored around India, where every game is a premium product.
If the global game leans back towards tri-series and quadrangulars, the BCCI will have to decide how far it wants to go along that road. The numbers behind non-India fixtures, the structure of media rights, and the willingness of broadcasters to pay for neutral clashes in Indian time zones will all come under the microscope.
The next FTP workshop in Dubai will not just be about where India play and when. It will be about what kind of cricket fills the calendar – and how a powerhouse balances its need for rest, preparation and financial muscle in a game that refuses to slow down.
