BCCI T20 Tournament in March-April 2009

[Sachinism]

The BBCI has announced that a domestic T20 event will be held in the last part of March and first week of April. BCCI thinks it will be good preparation for the T20 World Cup whereas the Indian Premier League franchises are viewing it as valuable match practice for their players just ahead of the commencement of the IPL tournament. It would seem that Twenty20 is now such a very popular format of cricket that the Board for Cricket control in India is anxious to put into place a strong domestic cricket circuit for the shortest form of the game. In 2007 the BCCI had organised a domestic T20 event which was however not able to be repeated in 2008 due to other commitments and a very crammed schedule. The 2007 event was held in Ahmedabad and was won by Tamil Nadu. Now however Cricket360.com is reliably informed that this year’s domestic T20 event is scheduled for the latter part of March and the first week of April. While the fixtures are yet to be finalised, it is planned that the tournament will be held at either Indore or Kanpur. Sources at the BCCI have indicated that this T20 meet will help both the Indian Premier League players as well as the national selectors ahead of the Twenty20 World Cup in England. "We are in the process of organising the tournament next month and it will give the selectors a good chance to look at fresh talent in the domestic circuit. Last year, we got to know of some of the new faces through IPL, but this year, who knows, we can get some more talent before the T20 World Cup," said the BCCI source. While the BCCI has its eye on the T20 world cup, the IPL franchises are also looking at the organisation of this event with interest. The timing of this event means that many of the members of the team will have the opportunity to get in some valuable match practice just before the IPL starts. “As some of the teams are not able to organise conditioning camps before the Indian Premier League, we are glad that some of our players will get some match practice in the BCCI event,’’ an IPL team official was quoted as having said. This will in fact be a good forum for domestic players to get some experience of this format of the game, since many of them will then be going on to participate in the IPL where they will be required to perform on an international cricket platform. Cricket360 will keep you updated on the schedules and venues of the fixtures http://www.cricket360.com/1080-bcci-t20-tournament-in-march-april-2009.html