The customary conclave of coaches and captains of domestic teams at the end of the cricket season is set to be dominated with the same old issues — mediocre umpiring, quality of pitches and balls and scheduling of domestic tournaments.
With nine additional teams featuring in the domestic season last season, Friday will see the largest ensemble at the annual gathering. It would be interesting to see if the representatives of the Plate Group teams will have any feedback different than that of the regulars.
The usual suspects, meanwhile, are set to stress on the quality of umpiring after the last season once again saw various umpires buckling under the pressure of big games.
Moreover, the previous season also saw criticism of the mechanism adopted for umpires’ appointments for important matches.
Outsourced
“With the umpires appointments being outsourced last year and tremendous rise in the number of matches with the addition of new teams, umpiring standards took a toll. Hopefully the BCCI can find a solution this time around,” said an established domestic coach on condition of anonymity.
It will also be interesting to see if any of the captains and coaches raise the need for parity in coaches’ remuneration across teams.
With the BCCI being unable to ask minimum fees to be paid, some of the underpaid coaches hope that the BCCI can “advise all the associations to pay at least what the BCCI has paid the coaches of new teams last season”.
First for women
While the men’s conclave will be held in the morning session, their women counterparts will assemble in the same enclosure at a suburban hotel post-lunch to share their views on the domestic season.
It will be the first time the BCCI will conduct a conclave of women’s captains and coaches. The presence of India head coach W.V. Raman will aide the domestic coaches’ and captains’ views be integrated into the set-up.
