Former Australian cricketer Michael Clarke disagrees with the latest guidelines put forth by the BCCI for Team India. The Board of Control for Cricket in India recently announced some guidelines for the team in which they decided to limit the presence of family members.
The guidelines were introduced in the wake of the shocking defeat to Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. India lost the Test series 1-3 and also failed to qualify for the World Test Championship final.
Michael Clarke highlights a gray area in BCCI's new guidelines
Speaking on ESPN's 'Around the Wicket' segment, Michael Clarke raised concerns about BCCI's decision to limit the presence of families during innings. He believes finding a balance with families on tour is difficult because some players have wives and children.
“Which I found difficult, because throughout my career, we went both ways where players and wives and partners were only allowed sometimes, not allowed other times, and then allowed all the time,” Clark said.
“It was a difficult balance. There were older men who were married with children, and there were single men,” the former Australia captain added.
Michael Clarke also questioned whether a single player is allowed to bring someone into a hotel bar and have a drink. He said there was no balance in this guideline and raised questions about it.
“So, from a team perspective, if partners aren't allowed to be there all the time, is a single man allowed to bring someone to the hotel bar and have a drink with her? Where's the balance?” Argue.
“I don't know how it's going to go. I think it's very sensitive because some people find it more difficult to be away from home,” Clark noted.
“The culture of India is very different from that of Australia” – Michael Clarke
Michael Clarke also spoke about the new BCCI guidelines through which the board has made it mandatory for every player to play domestic cricket whenever available. Clarke was surprised to see this rule as he feels it is a no-brainer for Australian cricket.
“It shows that the Indian culture is very different from the Australian culture. Because a lot of these things in the Australian team are no-brainers, part of being in this international setup,” Clark observed.
“First-class cricket, for example, I think is great for me. Our domestic system has been strong, and that's because players generally come back when they can, and play Sheffield Shield Cricket, BBL, One-Day, whatever,” he pointed out. .
India's cricket stars in Ranji Trophy
The BCCI has introduced ten-point guidelines for centrally contracted players. One such guideline was to make domestic cricket mandatory for every international player when available.
According to this guideline, no. Cricket stars like Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ravindra Jadeja and Virat Kohli have confirmed their readiness for the second phase of the Ranji Trophy.
