BCCI considers CA tie-up for NCA revamp

The National Cricket Academy board has authorised the preliminary proposal made by Cricket Australia, and authorised BCCI executives to negotiate further with CA regarding a bid to restructure the NCA into a High Performance Centre.

The decision was taken in the revamped NCA board's first meeting in New Delhi on Thursday. ESPNcricinfo understands that BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur and NCA chairman MP Pandove were impressed after being briefed about the preliminary discussions with CA.

The BCCI will now try and strike a deal with CA that will include sharing infrastructure, experts and faculties. The previous NCA chief TC Mathew had held discussions with CA as well as the ECB's high performance centre authorities during his tenure. But the decision over the NCA revamp took a backseat with the BCCI's office bearers having been embroiled in legal tussles over the 2013 IPL corruption scandal.

It is understood that the new NCA board, however, has set the coming off-season as the deadline to kickstart the prolonged revamp.

"A road map to develop the NCA into a High Performance Centre was deliberated at length and the need to establish such a nodal centre for all developmental activities with a renewed focus to develop our next generation of cricketers was discussed," the BCCI said in a statement after the meeting. "The location and detailed plans will be finalised, and will be presented in the forthcoming meeting of the Working Committee."

Meanwhile, the NCA revamp may result in the BCCI scrapping not just the specialist academies, but also their earlier plans of converting them into six zonal centres. In September 2013, the NCA Board had decided to do away with the batting, spin bowling and pace bowling academies in Mumbai, Chennai and Mohali, respectively. Instead, the board had proposed a zonal academy in each of its five zones and in the north-east to develop youngsters.

However, with most of the BCCI member units now having their own academy in place, the need for a zonal academy may not arise in the revamped structure.