Missed the Sri Lanka tour last year, and we had to work out something for it: Arun Dhumal

Team India is set to tour Sri Lanka in July for a bilateral limited-overs series. This series would not feature Virat Kohli or Rohit Sharma because they would be in England gearing up for their five-match Test series against the Three Lions following the World Test Championship final. India will be sending a second line of contingent to Sri Lanka. 

During an interview with Sportskeeda, BCCI Treasurer, Arun Dhumal spoke about the significance of the Sri Lankan tour and how it would give hope to cricket boards in these times of financial crunches.

“See as you know the cricket world is under tremendous pressure for the last one-and-a-half year given this COVID pandemic, a lot of FTP has been cancelled which has put a lot of strains on these associations all over the world. Until and unless you do these tours, we can’t make up, and it would be very difficult for all these boards to come out of the financial struggle that they are going through,” Arun Dhumal was quoted as saying during a chat with Sportskeeda.

Dhumal explained that India was scheduled to tour Sri Lanka last year, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the limited-overs series could not take place as planned. Keeping this in mind, the BCCI decided to make up for the series that was supposed to take place last year by holding it in July. One Indian team would play red-ball cricket in England, while the other would play white-ball cricket in the Sri Lankan subcontinent.

“We had to miss the Sri Lanka tour last year also. So, we need to work out on that and since our team that is going to England is primarily for Tests, we could have made up a team for these white-ball matches. So, that is why we thought we should do our bit to make sure Sri Lankan board and we can play white-ball cricket in time,” Arun Dhumal added.