The Karnataka State Cricket Association, following its managing committee meeting on Friday, said it has not cancelled the Dr (Capt) K Thimmappaiah memorial and the YSR memorial tournaments.
The KSCA had said, in a statement on Wednesday, that it was tentatively planning to start the season in the first week of July after the Covid-19 pandemic had forced the association to stop cricketing activities from the second half of March.
One of the many important decisions taken in Friday's meeting -- to approve the tournament committee's revised plans -- was not to cancel any tournament at the moment.
Given the Covid-19 restrictions in place and the paucity of time, KSCA initially was inclined to drop Thimmappaiah (perhaps the only four-day tournament apart from Ranji Trophy) and YSR (one-day format) meets from its calender but has decided to explore the possibilities of having both tournaments.
“In the meeting, the tournament committee sought our approval for their plans. We gave our nod for most of their decisions. But we took a call on not to cancel any tournament, for now. We want to keep our options open and find a window to hold all meets,” said Vinay Mruthyunjaya, the KSCA treasurer and spokesperson.
Vinay said the association will wait for the final direction from the BCCI before fixing an exact start-date for the season. “BCCI president Sourav Ganguly has written a letter saying the board will be sending a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for all States. The letter says the BCCI has involved medical experts to create the SOP. So we are waiting for BCCI’s guidelines,” he said.
The KSCA has changed the multi-day league structure to one-day format to make up for the lost time. “We were supposed to start from April but had to remain closed for almost two and a half months. Our revised calendar will be based on priority. We want to ensure that the age group selection matches are held,” said Vinay.
As far as inter-school tournaments are concerned, the KSCA has enough time on its hand. “It looks like schools will reopen only in September. We want them to start functioning and settle down a bit. Anyway, the schools will come up with their own SOP. So we will plan after that,” Vinay explained.
Vinay admitted that the upcoming phase will be challenging for the KSCA. “We need more resources to implement the SOP. There will be education programmes for cricketers. To effectively implement and monitor the changes will be our big test. In this, we will require the support of administrators, umpires and match referees. Apart from guidelines from the central government, we have gone through the instructions from Sports Authority of India and State government. Now, the communication from BCCI will be the key for us,” Vinay said.
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