BCCI makes changes in upcoming tours

The Indian board (BCCI) has made a few changes to the schedule of the touring Australia and Pakistan teams, due to visit India later this year.

According to the revised schedule, Australia and India would play the fourth of their best-of-seven ODI series on October 8 at Chandigarh's Sector-16 stadium, originally to be held at Guhawati. Guhawati would instead host the first ODI against Pakistan. The switch came about as the Haryana association wanted to host their allotted match - the opening ODI against Pakistan - at Chandigarh instead of Faridabad, the earlier proposed venue.

According to the BCCI's rules, one city cannot host than more than two matches in a series. Mohali, on the outskirts of Chandigarh, was already allotted a match for the Pakistan series.

In order to accommodate the changes, the dates for the Pakistan tour has been advanced by a day, with the first ODI on November 5 instead of November 6 and the second on November 8 instead of November 9.

Apart from the seven ODIs, Australia are slated to play a yet-to-be-confirmed Twenty20 tie against India during their visit from September 25 to October 20 while Pakistan will play five ODIs followed by a three-Test series between November 1 and December 12.

The revised schedule:

Australia's tour of India Sept 29: 1st ODI at Bangalore (D/N), Oct 2: 2nd ODI, Kochi, Oct 5: 3rd ODI, Hyderabad, Oct 8: 4th ODI, Chandigarh, Oct 11: 5th ODI, Vadodara, Oct 14: 6th ODI, Nagpur, Oct 17: 7th ODI, Mumbai (D/N), Oct 20: Twenty20 tie (yet to be confirmed).

Pakistan's tour of India Nov 2: Practice one-day match at Delhi, Nov 5: 1st ODI, Guwahati, Nov 8: 2nd ODI, Mohali (D/N), Nov 12: 3rd ODI, Kanpur, Nov 15: 4th ODI, Gwalior (D/N), Nov 18: 5th ODI, Jaipur (D/N), Nov 22-26: 1st Test, Delhi, Nov 30-Dec 4: 2nd Test, Kolkata, Dec 8-12: 3rd Test, Bangalore.