India set to tour Sri Lanka for three ODIs, three T20Is from July 13

The Board of Control for Cricket in Inda (BCCI) has confirmed that India is set to tour Sri Lanka for a white-ball series in July. Earlier, the Board’s president Sourav Ganguly had indicated that holding the remainder of the IPL in India is not possible owing to the team’s plan to travel Sri Lanka for three ODIs, followed by as many T20Is. 

As per Sri Lanka Cricket’s proposed itinerary to the BCCI, the series will get underway with ODIs on July 13, 16, and 19, followed by the T20Is on July 22, 24, and 27. To go by the ICC Future Tour Programme (FTP), India was scheduled to play three T20Is in Sri Lanka in July this year, while they had to play three T20Is and as many ODIs last June. Thanks to the pandemic, that tour was cancelled in its entirety.

Wouldn’t there be a clash with England tour?

There will be. But that is not a worry for India given the large pool of players available. Speculations regarding sending a different squad to Sri Lanka have already been on, and with players in abundance available across the length and breadth of the nation, finding an eleven different than the one in action in England won’t be a task.

India has selected a 20-man squad for the England Test series, which will start on August 4. With the quarantine norms in place, and the World Test Championship final that precedes the Test series, there was never a chance for the BCCI to follow ICC’s FTP with a first-choice squad being made available for Sri Lanka.

So, a second-string Indian team will go to the islands?

Only if you want to call it that. With Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja, and few others doing their duties in England, India still has the likes of Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw, Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Sanju Samson, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Deepak Chahar, Rahul Chahar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav and more available to take care of the Sri Lankan tour.

What else?

The current itinerary plans India’s limited-overs squad to arrive in Sri Lanka on July 5 and fly back home by July 28th. With the pandemic-enforced norms in place, Indian team members will have to undergo a mandatory week-long quarantine, which has been split into two parts of three hard quarantine days followed by four routine quarantine days.

Put simply, the players will have to lock themselves up inside the hotel rooms for the first three days. In the next four days, they can train and practice with the squad but will still be restricted just to the hotel and the ground.

And what about spectators?

Given there have been cases recently in the tight bio-secure environment despite no crowds being allowed, it is extremely unlikely that spectators will be allowed in the ongoing situations.