BCCI sees red in practice facilities provided to Aussies

Jaipur: The BCCI has expressed disappointment at the way the Rajasthan Cricket Association (RCA) has gone out of the way to provide training facilities for the Australians, who are currently in India for a four-Test series.

The Australians arrived in India a week earlier than as earlier scheduled and headed straight to Jaipur, where they will play a few practice matches and train at the Rajasthan Cricket Association's (RCA) cricket academy. It is learnt that the additional match and the training facilities were all asked for by Greg Chappell, RCA's consultant, but who is also the head coach of Cricket Australia's Centre of Excellence and now the assistant coach of the Australian team.

It is being reported that the RCA has provided the Aussies with ten different practice strips - each one with a different characterestic to it, so they get used to the conditions in the sub-continent. RCA's chief curator Tapash Chatterjee was quoted as saying, ""Looking into the conditions of India, we have given Australia everything they wanted for practice. We have prepared 10 wickets for Australia." 

However, the BCCI has expressed its disappointment at the way the Aussies are being treated. Cricketnext quoted Prof. Ratnakar Shetty, the chief administrative officer of the BCCI as saying, "We won't get this kind of facilities if India went abroad, we would have got the bare minimum. RCA is being a little too obliging to the Australian team, they have done more than what a host country will do."

The Aussies are in India for a four-Test series, the first of which starts at Bangalore on October 9. In the 15-member Australian squad that is currently touring India, only four players have had any experience of playing Test cricket in India; so they are trying to take as much as possible by playing practice matches on tour.