Why Indian Cricket Team desperately requires players' association for proper administration

In order to avoid the situation currently prevailing Australia, one has a feeling that the Indian Cricket Team requires a player’s body for constructive administration. Indian team has been playing non-stop cricket since August 2016 and it is a high time a body regulates the FTP program scheduled by the BCCI.

The Indian players presently do not have any Body and are not a part of the FICA as well. To which, the Lodha Committee suggested a change citing out the outstanding role of the players in the squad on the basis of their expertise, understanding of ground reality, domain knowledge, perspective, and insights.

Brief history

If we look at India’s itinerary since August of 2016, many of the players took part in Duleep Trophy which was followed by a Test tour to the West Indies and a two-match T20 series in Miami, Florida. The players then took part in perhaps one of the most grueling home season where they played host to Australia, New Zealand, England, and Bangladesh in 13 Test matches.

In between them, the One-day and T20 series against New Zealand and England were slotted in. India won each and every series they took part in since August 2016 until March 2017, which in itself is a phenomenal achievement. But, they could hardly recover from the toils from the season, they were pushed into playing in the IPL which started a week post-India’s victory over Australia. The two-month long tournament concluded and we saw the Indian players board the flight to London to take part in the Champions Trophy.

India still managed to reach the semi-finals of the Champions Trophy and hardly a week post the end of the tournament, we see them back to West Indies to play a five-match ODI series as a favor to the board, in front of empty seats watched only by friends and ground staff.

The questions which come to the mind then is why Indian Cricket Team in the West Indies after such a draining season?I s there some mysterious cricket reason we are missing? Are players just players or partners in governance? The Board must answer these questions with corresponding actions