Indian cricketers WAGs now allowed to travel with partners after 10 days of tour

A recent meeting held by BCCI officials and CoA members indicated that the Indian cricket board would follow the footsteps of Cricket Australia and chalk out a ‘Family period’ throughout the annual season. But CoA officials have now cleared Indian cricketers’ wives and girlfriends to travel along with their respective partners on overseas tours, but only after a completion of 10 days of the tour.

Earlier this month, Indian captain Virat Kohli had approached the BCCI to bring about a change in its policy to WAGs. Previously, BCCI used to regularly insist on a no-WAGs policy which was later changed to a policy that wives and girlfriends of cricketers, coaches and the support staff could tour for a period of two weeks. However, the Indian governing body has agreed to Kohli’s request as they see no harm in promoting such a policy in the near future.

The CoA arrived at the conclusion that cricketers tend to tour for prolonged periods of time and the presence of WAGs can only help create a better support system for the players, especially on foreign tours. The CoA had also met Kohli, coach Ravi Shastri and vice-captain Rohit Sharma in Hyderabad last week prior to the start of the second Test against the West Indies in a bid to have a word with the players before making a final call.

A few years ago in 2015, Cricket Australia’s chief executive James Sutherland had welcomed an identical move despite criticism then that presence of WAGs had contributed to Australia's Ashes downfall.