Ratnakar Shetty reveals BCCI’s plans of creating FTP for women’s cricket
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BCCI General Manager Ratnakar Shetty has stated that the Board of Control for Cricket in India is planning a Future Tours Programme for the women's team. Shetty also feels that arranging more limited overs matches is the best way of creating a strong base for women's cricket.
India reached the final of the ICC Women’s World Cup this year where they lost to England in a well-contested final. Notwithstanding the result, it has far-reaching consequences and initiated a paradigm shift. The team was hailed as the torch-bearers for a new era in Indian women's cricket and if Shetty’s words are anything to go by, then the cricketers will have a proper schedule through FTP.
"We are now planning to have an FTP at the international level like the men's team for ODIs and T20s and that is working out well. Don't go by
Hailing Indian women’s team's performance in the World Cup, Shetty said that the focus will be on arranging more limited overs matches. He felt that it was the best way to create a strong base for women's cricket.
"There is a common question that there are not enough matches for women," he said. "What is important to understand is that, and this was at the ICC forum I attended, countries like England and Australia are not keen on Test matches.
"Every country and ICC is first interested in creating a base for women's cricket for the promotion of the game in all the nations which play cricket. Therefore the focus is only on limited-overs cricket, the ODIs and T20s.
Recently, Shetty, who served the Mumbai Cricket Association as a joint-secretary from September 1996 to April 2005, has been given an additional responsibility of being in-charge of the development of the women's game. And now he is stressing to change the structure in order to make women's cricket more competitive and productive at the age group level.
"We have restructured the women's cricket at the junior level and we will have an U-16 tournament at the zonal level because I can tell you from my experience that it is not easy to get 15 players in every state association," he said.
"So this year we will have aÂ
"We have a senior women's tournament where we have one-day games, three-day games and T20s. The U-19 girls also play two-day games, so this is the structure we have decided for women's cricket under BCCI."
