An unnamed ‘star’ Indian men’s cricket and his family have been accused of taking 27 luggage bags, comprising 17 bats and weighing over 250 kgs to Australia for the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
This forced the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to shell out airport baggage fees worth lakhs of rupees as the team traveled across the country for the five-Test series.
This incident made the BCCI reconsider its regulations and played a key role in the board’s new diktat which has set the limit of each player’s luggage at 150 kg for both personal and cricket gear. Any additional luggage expense beyond this limit will have to be paid by the players themselves.
This new rule is one of the many imposed by the BCCI since the tour of Australia, where India suffered a 3-1 series defeat, losing a place in the World Test Championship (WTC) Final for the first time. Other rules include a limitation on family members’ time on tours — now, the BCCI will only allow families to accompany players for two weeks for tours that run longer than 45 days.
The first example of it will be seen in the upcoming 2025 Champions Trophy, which will run from February 19 to March 9. India will begin their campaign against Bangladesh on February 20, and will also play Pakistan and New Zealand in the group stage, too. All of the Men in Blue’s matches will be hosted in the UAE.
“If anything changes then it is different but as of now, the players are unlikely to be accompanied by their wives or partners for this tour,” a BCCI official was quoted as saying on Friday.
“One of the senior players had enquired about it and he was told that the policy decision will be followed. Since the tour is for less than one month, families won’t be accompanying the players. But if exceptions are made, I think that individual will have to bear the full expenses as BCCI won’t be covering any cost,” the official added.
Another rule mandated players’ participation in domestic cricket, which saw the likes of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and KL Rahul to return to the Ranji Trophy for their state after years.
