Reports | BCCI, CA, ECB lead campaign to call off Test Championship cycle
With the coronavirus outbreak having a solid grip on the sporting activities, the big three have written to the ICC, asking for the Test Championship Cycle and the proposed one-day international (ODI) league to be scrapped. ECB have also conveyed to the ICC that the FTP also needs to be "revisited".
With many Test series, part of the current Test Championship being postponed to a later date, it has become increasingly difficult for the ICC to find a slot so as to keep the final in June 2021 a valid dream. The T20 World Cup will be affected heavily in case the Test Championship is given priority and that means huge losses for the boards. In the wake of that, BCCI, ECB and CA spearheaded a letter to the global body, asking for the Test Championship Cycle and the one-day international league to be done away with for the current cycle.
"This is an ongoing discussion right now. There's absolutely no leadership coming out of the ICC whatsoever. What the ICC is trying to do is propose and schedule more official tournaments, which will do nothing but eat into the bilateral windows of its own member boards. No member board that is potentially sitting on a healthy media rights deal will agree to this," a leading administrator told TOI.
One of the controversial decisions that the ICC are going to take is the decision to host one ICC event every year, including a new white-ball tournament called the Champions Cup. While the FTP draft has been made ready for this, on the basis of which the ICC has gone about requesting members to come forward with âExpression of Interest' to bid for properties, the ECBÂ conveyed to the ICC that the Future Tours Program (FTP) draft needs to be "revisited" in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak.