India name venues for Australia and South Africa series

The Indian board today announced the six Test venues for the forthcoming series against Australia and South Africa later this year. Kanpur, Nagpur, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai all made the grade, but there was no place for Delhi.

Jagmohan Dalmiya, president of the board, confirmed the venues after the first day of the working committee meeting at Delhi. He said, "Delhi said that it could not host a Test match. So we have decided on these six venues besides a couple of stand byes in case there is any casualty."

Dalymiya added that the dates of the matches for these venues would not be decided until tomorrow, but did confirm that Hyderabad and Jaipur would host the warm-up matches. Australia are due to play four Test matches between September 30 and November 7, while the South Africans are scheduled to play two Tests in November.

Dalmiya also discussed other issues such as increasing the pension for former Test players and umpires. "The major decision taken today was that under the Platinum Pension Scheme, the Test players and umpires who retired prior to 1976 would be getting Rs 10,000 per month instead of Rs 5,000," he said. "But those who retired after 1976, would continue to get Rs 5,000."

Another topic for discussion was a change in format of the Under-19 Cooch Behar Trophy, which will now be played in the same structure of the Ranji Trophy. "The Elite and Plate format in the Ranji Trophy is extremely successful. Now the same will be applied to under-19 Cooch Behar Trophy from this year," Dalmiya said. "It was decided that two teams instead of the existing one team would now qualify for the knock-out stage of the Ranji Trophy one-day tournament.

"It was further decided that the proposal to do away with the toss before the start of matches would not be implemented now and that there would be a financial penalty for pitch doctoring."

Lastly, Dalmiya revealed that to mark 75 years of Indian cricket, they would host a one-off one-dayer against Pakistan: "The date for the match against Pakistan has not been finalised. We would be deciding on the venue and date in a few days time."