The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Sourav Ganguly on Saturday confirmed India’s tour of Australia later this year which will see the Virat Kohli-led team playing four Tests. However, Ganguly has called for a shortened quarantine period for the players.
“Ya, ya, we have confirmed that tour. In December we will be coming. We just hope the number of quarantine days get reduced a bit,” Ganguly told TV channel India Today as quoted on PTI.
“Because we don’t want the players to go all that far and sit in hotel rooms for two weeks. It is very, very depressing and disappointing.”
“And, as I said Australia and New Zealand have been in good position except Melbourne. So from that point of view we will be going there and hopefully the quarantine days will be less and we can get back to cricket,” he added.
Australia, a nation of 25 million, has done well to contain the spread of the virus and has reported only about 9000 cases so far, of which 106 proved fatal.
The West Indies squad spent 14 days in quarantine after landing in England on June 9 for the three-Test tour, that began on July 8, marking the return of international cricket.
Team India are scheduled to tour in December-January. Last month, Cricket Australia (CA) had released the schedule of the series. The matches would be played at Brisbane Gabba, Adelaide Oval, Melbourne Cricket Ground and the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Gabba would host the opening match from December 3. While the second match in Adelaide from December 11 will be India’s first away Day-Night Test, the ones in Melbourne and Sydney will be the traditional Boxing Day and New Year Tests respectively.
“It is going to be a tough series. It is not going to be what it was two years back. It is going to be a strong Australia but our team is as good,” said Ganguly.
“We have the batting, we have the bowling. We just need to bat better. The best team overseas bat well. When we were so successful in England, in Australia, in Pakistan we were getting 400-500-600 in Test matches. I said that to Virat as well.”