On Thursday, the BCCI postponed the under-16 Vijay Merchant Trophy following the surge in Covid-19 cases in the country. The tournament was scheduled to take place from January 9 to 21.
In a letter to all the affiliated associations, BCCI’s secretary Jay Shah informed about the development.
“We have been closely monitoring the situation in India and across the world, and it is estimated that the caseload will shoot up in the immediate future if the situation is not controlled now,” Jay Shah wrote in the letter.
“After consulting experts and seeking views of the medical teams and operations team, it has been decided that keeping health and safety in mind, the U16 Vijay Merchant Trophy is postponed for this season,” he added.
Shah also pointed out that none of these players had been vaccinated yet hence the risk would be slightly higher as compared to other senior-level domestic tournaments.
“We must exercise caution and not be adventurous and put the health of our talented cricketers at grave risk,” he pointed out.
Earlier in July, BCCI announced the full-fledged domestic cricket calendar which included all age-group cricket as well as women’s cricket with a total of 2127 games in the men’s and women’s category.
“Ahead of the domestic season, we had said that we will endeavour to have a full season across age groups, We started off well and are now mid-way into the season having completed 748 matches when we have again encountered a serious issue. The cases across India are spiralling and despite being a large number of adults doubly vaccinated, they have still been infected,”
Earlier BCCI had decided to allow 60 U-16 players whose bone test results showed 16.5. It was understood that BCCI allowed them because Vijay Merchant Trophy usually happens in September but due to the pandemic it was delayed this year hence the bone tests were also delayed in the process.
“These bone tests happen 2 months prior to the tournament, usually starting from July of every year. This year the tournament is being played after a COVID induced gap of one year and also is delayed by 4 months from its usual timing. Therefore the bone tests were also delayed by 3 – 4 months and they started in the last week of November and went up to 20th December.” BCCI game development manager Dhiraj Malhotra wrote in a letter to all state units.
However, as far as senior-level cricket is set to continue as per schedule. The Ranji Trophy will begin on January 13. Notable that Ranji Trophy was scrapped from the 2020-21 season because of Covid-19.
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