T20 carnival to continue for Indian cricket fans

T20 carnival to continue for Indian cricket fans: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has recently released the schedule of matches for Team India in the coming year. Following the Indian Premier League (IPL), starting from the month of July, the Indian Cricket team is set to play a large number of T20 Internationals this year against a host of nations.

The team will play a minimum of 11 T20Is, starting from July, a series of 2 games against Zimbabwe in Zimbabwe. Will be followed by a series of 3 T20Is against the mighty South Africans in India, which is next on the schedule in September. Post that, the Indian team will travel to Australia for 3 T20Is in January 2016 and return back home for a 3, 20Twenty match series against the Sri Lankans in February.

This freshly released schedule is a different one from what we usually see for the team, as there will now be more emphasis on playing as many games of the shortest format as possible and against a good number of opponents, in various conditions. India has played only 53 T20s since their triumphant 2007 T20 WC campaign. Prior to the 2014 T20 WC, they had only played a single T20 in the preceding year. Since the team has not been able to replicate its performance from the World T20 2007 the Board is trying to give them as much exposure as possible in the format to give them the best preparation for the World Cup that will be played at home.

Furthermore, the Asia Cup, from this year is set to be a series of T20Is instead of the usual 50 over’s matches. The format change had been announced some time ago but the host nation is still to be decided for the March 2016 tournament. Two Associate nations will join India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in the next Asia Cup.