MUMBAI: In what is another of many ‘firsts’ for Indian cricket in recent years, the BCCI has this year outsourced the scheduling of its entire domestic circuit to a private company.

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The BCCI, after having recently brought on board a new general manager (operations) in Saba Karim alongside other recruitments, including the hiring of hospitality-industry professional Tufan Ghosh as the COO at the National Cricket Academy (NCA), has distanced itself from the fundamental responsibility of scheduling the country’s vast domestic season.

The Indian cricket board has outsourced this responsibility to ‘Sportsmechanics’, a company founded by the Indian team’s former video analyst S Ramakrishnan , popularly known as ‘Ramky’ in the cricket circles.

On its website, Sportsmechanics, as a company, announces itself as a platform to implement “top-notch solutions with agile advisory services, advance analytics and technology platforms to help sports bodies, athletes, teams, brands and broadcasters achieve better outcomes”.

Despite a full-fledged staff in place, which includes a team of operations executives, the BCCI refused to take up the responsibility of scheduling the 2018-19 domestic calendar – a decision that had the backing of the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA).

Surprisingly, none of the ex-India cricketers – regardless of whether they are members with state associations or not – were approached before the finalising of the domestic calendar. “What’s the technical committee’s responsibility? Just conducting meetings and then agreeing to outsource everything to private companies? By the way, you can find out which ex-cricketers have a stake in this private company (Sportsmechanics),” said BCCI members.

Until last year, BCCI used the services of ‘Sportsmechanics’ merely to optimise its domestic circuit in order to facilitate services like appointment of umpires, match referees and other logistical solutions.

“Outsourcing of the entire domestic calendar tells you how nobody in the board’s present dispensation wants to take any responsibility whatsoever. The question is, why are individuals taking home fat salaries if responsibilities merely have to be outsourced?” asked members.

The BCCI had recently released its new domestic calendar in which it proposed to introduce pre-quarterfinals in the Ranji Trophy. It took a decision to implement the same format in the junior tournaments and positioned the sequence of domestic tournaments in the following order: Duleep Trophy, Vijay Hazare Trophy, Ranji Trophy League phase, Mushtaq Ali T20, Ranji Trophy knockouts, Deodhar Trophy.

