The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has spent three and a half crore Indian rupees just to ensure that the Indian players, coaching staff and their families can travel from Manchester to Trinidad and Tobago on a charter flight after the completion of the England tour.
It’s a huge amount of money to spend for a board just to send its players from one country to another. Generally, BCCI books a ticket in the business class for the captain of the team, and the rest of the members travel in the economy class of a normal aircraft.
However, during the COVID pandemic, there were a few scenarios where a charter flight was arranged, but in many of those cases, players of more than one team traveled in the charter flight together. With the COVID effect easing on the game now, the usual journey in the aircraft has resumed for most of the cricket boards.
BCCI didn’t want to take any chance with the COVID situation
BCCI, however, didn’t want to take any chance and that’s why they arranged a charter flight from Manchester to Trinidad and Tobago because any COVID outbreak in the camp might have affected the schedule of the West Indies tour. Since West Indies is too far away, it would have been slightly difficult to send replacement players on short notice.
India had a 16-member squad to travel for the ODI series and along with the coaching staff and the family members of the players who were also going to travel alongside, it made sense to the BCCI to arrange a charter flight costing an amount of three and a half crores.
India has to play a 5-match T20I series as well, after the 3-match ODI series on the West Indies tour and for the T20I series, the first choice team has been announced, which will be traveling from India to West Indies later.
