BCCI to bear all expenses of NE states' Ranji debut

The BCCI will bear the entire cost of the cash-strapped North Eastern states' Ranji Trophy debut, which has been mandated by the Supreme Court-appointed Lodha Committee, a couple of whom will play their home games at neutral venues due to lack of infrastructure.

It has been reliably learnt that Sikkim and Arunachal do not have grounds that will match up to requirements of first-class cricket and will play at neutral venues in neighbouring states.

The BCCI will be providing all the six states with their accreditated NCA coaches, physios and trainers (men's, boys age group, women, girls' age group).

Normally the BCCI units pay for their support staff but for NE states, the parent body will make an exception.

"BCCI has assured that all the state teams will be provided with coaches. We will have to submit our requirements and accordingly they will depute the support staff. The entire expenses will be borne by the board," a representative of the North Eastern state told PTI on conditions of anonymity.

"We will not be paid any grant directly. We need to submit the budget clearly mentioning all the overheads and BCCI directly makes the payments. It is difficult to pinpoint a figure but anything in the range of 4-5 crore needs to be spent per state. Infrastructure and logistics are two key issues," he added.

The representatives of the North Eastern states met the BCCI's Cricket Operations team headed by Saba Karim at the headquarters in Mumbai today.

"Sikkim will be playing their home games in Siliguri while Arunachal Pradesh are likely to play in one of the grounds in Assam. Development of infrastructure was the key issue that was discussed along with streamlining the budget requirements."
"Meghalaya will have their pre-season camp at Guwahati. Some of the states will find it convenient if camps are held in Tamil Nadu or Karnataka, where they can avail all state of the art facilities."