Former Indian Premier League chairman Rajeev Shukla has echoed captain Virat Kohli's suggestion that India's touring schedule is too full.
India recently concluded a T20I series against Sri Lanka and immediately moved to three ODIs with Australia. They have since travelled to New Zealand for five more T20Is. New Zealand are available at 2.63 with Bet365 to win the series opener against New Zealand.
This year will also include the IPL, T20 World Cup, Asia Cup and other bilateral series for India.
“I agree with Virat that calendar is too hectic. There should not be back-to-back matches and series as well. Players must get some rest and also enough time to get acclimatised,” tweeted Shukla.
Kohli will likely be involved in the bulk if not all, India's international cricket this year. He, too, will captain the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the 2020 IPL. He is currently in New Zealand with the T20I squad.
What Kohli said
“Well, it's definitely getting closer and closer to landing at the stadium straight, that's how compressed the gap has become,” he said earlier this week.
“But yeah, I think this kind of travel and coming to a place which is seven-and-a-half hours ahead of India time is always difficult to adjust to immediately. So I am sure these things will be taken into a consideration a lot more in the future – it is what it is, and you've got to do the best you can to recover and to get used to the timings and just get on the park again. That's international cricket for you today. It's back to back.
“T20Is sort of helps because it's less time on the park. So from that point of view, I think we've had longer games, the last three that we played against Australia, we played a few T20s before that.
“But having played a lot more than what you do in a T20 game in the last three games, I think we will find it a bit easier to come here and, even though with less time, just to be at the park and just be at our best as a team. We are looking forward to that, starting the T20s, because this is the year of the World Cup, so every T20 is important.”
India won the inaugural World Twenty20 (since renamed the T20 World Cup) in 2007. They will host the 2021 T20 World Cup.
