CHENNAI: Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Rajkot, Ranchi and Dharamsala will host the five Test matches India will play against England early next year (January 25 - March 7). The white-ball series against Afghanistan, initially supposed to be played in June this year, is set to happen in January (11-17) Mohali, Indore and Bengaluru hosting the three T20Is. This was announced by the BCCI on Tuesday.
The men’s bilateral home season featuring three ODIs, eight T20Is and five Tests begin with the 50-over series against Australia. Mohali is the venue for the first ODI on September 22, two weeks before the World Cup. Indore and Rajkot will also be hosting the three-match series that will go on till September 27. Visakhapatnam, Thiruvananthapuram, Guwahati, Nagpur and Hyderabad are the venues for the five T20Is the two teams will play less than a week after the marquee event finishes in Ahmedabad.
While it seems like the BCCI have allotted all the bilateral matches largely to venues that are not part of the global event, the biggest talking point is the fact that the major centres have been ignored for the marquee Test series against England. Dharamsala is understood to have gotten the fixture as it missed out on the match against Australia earlier this year. Each of the venues may face trouble in selling out Test tickets. In fact, it has been a pattern for a while. Kolkata last hosted a Test match in 2019. Mumbai and Chennai last had Tests in 2021. Bengaluru was in March 2022.
Former India skipper Virat Kohli had spoken about it back in 2019. “We’ve been discussing this for a long time now, and in my opinion we should have five Test centres, period,” Kohli had said, after the Ranchi Test against South Africa in 2019. “I mean, I agree (with) state associations and rotation and giving games and all that, that is fine for T20 and one-day cricket, but Test cricket, teams coming to India should know, ‘we’re going to play at these five centres, these are the pitches we’re going to expect, these are the kind of people that will come to watch, crowds’. It can’t be sporadic and spread over so many places where people turn up or they don’t, so in my opinion, absolutely.”
Meanwhile, the women, who are scheduled to face South Africa, New Zealand, England and Australia at home as per the FTP, are still waiting about the venues. While it’s understood that the series against South Africa and New Zealand have been postponed, there has been no official confirmation. The multi-format series versus England and Australia is also still very much in the calendar for December.
India men home fixtures
Australia series: 1st ODI: Sept 22, Mohali, 2nd ODI: Sept 24, Indore, 3rd ODI: Sept 27, Rajkot; 1st T20I: Nov 23, Visakhapatnam, 2nd T20I: Nov 26, Thiruvananthapuram, 3rd T20I: Nov 28, Guwahati, 4th T20I: Dec 1, Nagpur, 5th T20I: Dec 3, Hyderabad; Afghanistan series: 1st T20I: Jan 11, Mohali, 2nd T20I: Jan 14, Indore, 3rd T20I: Jan 17, Bengaluru; England series: 1st Test: Jan 25-29, Hyderabad, 2nd Test: Feb 2-6, Visakhapatnam, 3rd Test: Feb 15-19, Rajkot, 4th Test: Feb 23-27, Ranchi, 5th Test: Mar 3-7, Dharamsala).