India to go ahead with Zimbabwe tour

India have decided to go ahead with their tour of Zimbabwe in July-August. The trip had been in doubt after India had decided to put it "on hold". India will now go to Zimbabwe soon after finishing their tri-series in the West Indies, involving Sri Lanka as the third team, which ends on July 11. The BCCI didn't specify how long the tour will be, but there have been reports that it has been extended to five ODIs from the original three.

The tour was cleared at the BCCI working committee's emergent meeting in Delhi. The working committee also confirmed that India A will tour South Africa in August. Coming as it does months before the senior team's full tour of South Africa, the A-team tour is being seen as crucial.

India Under-19s, meanwhile, are now scheduled to travel to Australia in June-July, and to Sri Lanka in August. The nature and number of matches to be played on either of these tours hasn't been specified.

The senior-team players have been on the road since the start of the home series against England last November. They will continue to be on it till the end of the Zimbabwe tour unless the selectors send a second-string side over. When India last went to Zimbabwe, in 2010, Suresh Raina captained a young side, and India didn't make it to the final of the one-day tri-series. Reports suggest there won't be dynamic changes to the side this time.

India are then scheduled to have a break before the Champions League T20, unless an unlikely breakthrough allows India's away matches against Pakistan to go ahead in August.