Not a level playing field 

There is cricket in the air in the Northeast. The states of Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim have been inducted into the BCCI fold and from the next season, they will for the first time take part in first-class cricket. In a separate group to begin with, two of them will compete against others in the top tier next year. One wonders what the officials were thinking before deciding that the time is right to get these teams into mainstream cricket.

The odds are stacked against development of cricket in these places due to lack of grounds, infrastructure, funds, skill and favourable weather. They are in no state to compete with teams that have played the game for over 100 years. This move opens the door for uneven contests at a level just a rung below international cricket. This is not to say these teams should forever be kept away from the bat and ball. It has been seen that athletes from these states are naturally gifted.

With time, they can get better at cricket too. But grooming and coaching is something else and asking them to compete against established names when they have just about started is another. That’s why the decision by the CoA, which runs BCCI, and other officials seems discordant.Instead of getting the Northeast teams into mainstream cricket gradually, there has been an attempt to fast-track them without taking into account the practical problems.

The addition of six states with six teams each (Men’s–Senior, U-23, U-19 and U-15; Women’s–Senior and U-19 ) multiplies the number of matches held annually. This will cause a logistical nightmare too, since there aren’t enough grounds, umpires and match referees for so many additional games. But since the decision has been taken, teams from this region are going to play this season. When something similar was done in Pakistan a few decades ago, it saw records set for the most one-sided contests in the history of first-class cricket. Maybe it will take something similar here for the bosses to have a rethink.