BCCI Advocates for Rest and Warm-Ups in 2027

The Board of Control for Cricket in India wants a very different kind of Future Tours Programme next time around. Less churn, more thought. Fewer days spent stumbling off a long-haul flight straight into a first Test in swinging, seaming conditions.

And it does not have long to make its case.

On September 22 and 23 in Dubai, operations teams from around the cricketing world will sit down for a workshop on the 2027–31 FTP cycle. India will be at the table, armed with a clear brief: protect its players and carve out time to adapt, especially in SENA countries – South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia.

“The challenge we are facing is that there are too many matches in the year, and that is why, in the next FTP, we will do certain things and take certain measures,” BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia said on Thursday after a review meeting of the Indian team.

He spelled out the priorities. The BCCI has instructed its FTP planners to ensure “proper rest for the players” and to build in “some kind of acclimatisation or friendly matches before any major series in SENA countries.”

That sounds simple. The calendar says otherwise.

A crowded road from 2027 to 2031

The next FTP must be stitched together around a heavy load of ICC events and existing bilateral commitments. Every window India wants for rest or warm-ups will have to be prised out of a schedule already creaking under the weight of global tournaments.

On the Test front, India are due to host England for a five-match series at the start of 2028, then head to Australia at the end of the same year. Return tours follow: India are pencilled in to tour England in 2029 and to host Australia in 2031.

Layered over that is a run of ICC showpieces. The T20 World Cup lands in Australia and New Zealand in 2028. The Champions Trophy comes to India in 2029. Another T20 World Cup follows in 2030, spread across England, Scotland and Ireland. The 2031 ODI World Cup then heads to India and Bangladesh.

On top of it all sit World Test Championship obligations. Those are expected to send India to South Africa and the West Indies, while Sri Lanka and one more side are likely visitors for home series in the same window.

The jigsaw is brutal. Yet the BCCI has a reputation for getting what it targets in global scheduling rooms. If it wants acclimatisation blocks and rest carved out, it will push hard in Dubai.

Multilateral cricket back on the table

While India wrestles with its own priorities, a broader shift is taking shape. Cricbuzz understands that the next international calendar could lean more heavily on multilateral tournaments. Across boards, there is a growing sense that bilateral series are losing their edge – both in terms of audience interest and financial muscle.

Multilateral cricket, the thinking goes, can pull in bigger broadcast numbers and better returns.

Tri-series and quadrangular tournaments once sat at the heart of the international calendar. Now they are almost museum pieces. A rare exception is playing out in Namibia, where a T20I tri-series involving the hosts, South Africa and Zimbabwe is under way.

Since the 2019 World Cup, there has been just one ODI tri-series: New Zealand, South Africa and Pakistan played a short event ahead of the 2025 Champions Trophy. That is the sum total in more than half a decade.

India’s own history with such events has gone quiet. Since the 2011 World Cup, India have featured in only four multilateral tournaments of this kind. There was the 2011–12 tri-series in Australia, with Sri Lanka as the third side. In 2013 came another, involving Sri Lanka and hosts West Indies. A year later, India returned to Australia for a 2014–15 tri-series, this time with England in the mix.

The last taste came in 2018 at the Nidahas Trophy in Sri Lanka, a T20I tri-series with Bangladesh as the third team. Dinesh Karthik’s last-ball six in the final still lives vivid in Indian cricket’s recent memory.

The first three of those tournaments were ODIs. The Nidahas Trophy shifted the format to T20I. The Asia Cup, of course, remains a multilateral constant, but that sits in a different bucket entirely as a property of the Asian Cricket Council.

India’s multilateral dilemma

In most countries, multilateral tournaments are owned and driven by the host board. They control the event and reap the commercial upside. For the BCCI, the equation is more complex.

Non-India matches simply do not command the same value in the Indian market. That reality cuts into the potential upside of hosting a tri-series or quadrangular. It also explains a striking fact: India have not hosted a multilateral tournament of this kind since the TVS Cup in 2003–04, when Australia and New Zealand were the other two teams.

Any push to revive such events in India will hinge on the fine print. How will media rights be packaged? How will revenue from matches not involving India be valued and shared? What does a broadcaster actually pay for when half the fixtures might draw modest numbers?

Those are the questions that will quietly shape the next FTP as much as any discussion on rest days or warm-up games. The BCCI wants space for its players to breathe and time for them to adjust in hostile overseas conditions. Other boards want formats that pay.

Somewhere in that clash of priorities, the shape of international cricket from 2027 to 2031 will be decided.