BCCI Planning a FTP for Women’s Team: Ratnakar Shetty

Oct 3, 2017 at 11:15 AM

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BCCI Planning a FTP for Women’s Team: Ratnakar Shetty

In a much-needed boost to women’s cricket, BCCI general manager Ratnakar Shetty, on Monday (October 2), said the Indian board is planning on having a Future Tours Programme (FTP) for the women’s team which is ‘working out well’.

“We are now planning to have an FTP at the international level like the men’s team for ODIs and T20s, and that is working out well,” Shetty said at the Sports Journalists’ Federation of India conclave. “Don’t go by the quantity of matches but go by the fact that we will be playing better teams in the next two years and our girls will get a chance to compete at that level.”

Shetty’s comments have come on the back of several women cricketers including captain Mithali Raj’s insistence the board should start an IPL-like tournament for the women after the Women in Blue’s sizzling performance in this year’s World Cup. Mithali Raj & Co. had entered the tournament after playing the qualifiers and defeated the likes of England, New Zealand and Australia to make it to the finals.

Shetty further said the women’s game has improved in the country since the BCCI took the game under its purview in 2005 before stating the focus will be on arranging more limited-overs matches.

“There is a common question that there are not enough matches for women,” he said. “What is important to understand is that, and this was at the ICC forum I attended, countries like England and Australia are not keen on Test matches.

“Every country and ICC is first interested in creating a base for women’s cricket for the promotion of the game in all the nations which play cricket. Therefore the focus is only on limited-overs cricket, the ODIs and T20s,” he added.

Shetty, who was given the responsibility of being in-charge of the development of the women’s game, further spoke on the steps taken by the board for the betterment of the game.

“We have restructured the women’s cricket at the junior level, and we will have a U-16 tournament at the zonal level because I can tell you from my experience that it is not easy to get 15 players in every state association,” he said.

“So this year we will have a zonal tournament for U-16. We already have a U-19 tournament, and we have U-23 where they play one-day games, and this year onwards they will play T20.

“We have a senior women’s tournament where we have one-day games, three-day games and T20s. The U-19 girls also play two-day games, so this is the structure we have decided for women’s cricket under BCCI,” he added.

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