The BCCI has refused to re-schedule the itinerary for next year’s tour of India by the English team following reported complaints from the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).Despite the ECB’s dissatisfaction with the itinerary, the BCCI will stick to its stance of following the rotation policy, even if that has led to most of the England tour matches being allocated to “remote venues”.England are scheduled to play three Test matches and seven One-Day Internationals during their 45-day tour of India beginning March 8, next year. What has created all the confusion over the itinerary is a simple case of miscommunication, claims BCCI sources.“The BCCI programmes and fixtures committee has only decided on the venues and the dates, that’s it. The Board didn’t fix up the exact itinerary. The ECB will get back only after which the details will be finalised,”a BCCI official said.Although the BCCI hasn’t had any formal response as yet from the ECB, the Indian Board has already indicated that it will certainly not change the venues even if ECB requests formally.“The BCCI is strictly following the rotation policy, and the England series falls under the uniform rotation structure. The sequence of matches isn’t finalised yet, but the venues are absolutely final. It doesn’t make any sense to change a venue merely on the basis of lodging constraints for travelling fans,” the official argued. Ahmedabad, Nagpur and Mumbai have been allotted Tests, while the venues for the ODIs are Goa, Indore, Guwahati, Faridabad, Cuttack, Kochi and Visakhapatnam.
