The Board of Control for Cricket in India convened a review meeting in Mumbai on Thursday following a disastrous summer tour of the United Kingdom where the national side suffered eight losses across nine white-ball fixtures in June and July. Board secretary Devajit Saikia addressed reporters after the session, which included head coach Gautam Gambhir, players Shreyas Iyer and Shubman Gill, and Centre of Excellence head VVS Laxman. Laxman is additionally scheduled to coach the men’s team at the upcoming Asian Games 2026.
India began their campaign against Ireland in Belfast, dropping both Twenty20 International matches despite entering as world champions. Subsequent fixtures in England proved equally dismal. The five match Twenty20 International series concluded with a 4-1 scoreline after England secured four victories and one match ended in a washout. The following One Day International series brought further disappointment as India lost 2-1, culminating in an overall record of eight defeats out of nine full white-ball games.
Addressing long term objectives, Saikia emphasized that strategic planning is already underway for upcoming global tournaments. He noted, ‘Our main intention is that we should have the best team combination in the months of October, November next year, in the ODI World Cup. Player Injuries And Workload Physical fitness and recurring player injuries emerged as another major talking point during the discussions. Saikia highlighted the heavy physical toll exacted by continuous competitive cricket, pointing out that three to four members of the fifteen player squad sustained injuries during the England One Day International leg alone. He attributed a significant portion of this fatigue to the rigorous two month Indian Premier League season preceding the international assignments. Future Tours Programme Adjustments To mitigate these concerns moving forward, the board intends to lobby for scheduling adjustments within future Future Tours Programmes. Saikia concluded, ‘The only challenges which we are facing is that there are too many matches in the year, and that is why in the next FTP, we will do certain things, we will take certain measures. We have instructed our FTP person, who we will be meeting very soon in various international forums, that our FTP should be scheduled in such a way that there is proper rest for the players as well as some kind of acclimatisation or some kind of friendly matches before any major series in SENA countries.’
Because we have a lot of series now, we have basically thought about what should be our way forward with our team preparation and all,. Because they have to play a lot of matches, elaborating on workload management challenges, Saikia explained, ‘Individual players are having injuries. If you look at their schedule, if you look at England, a 15-player team went for the ODIs and out of the 15, three to four players got injured.
