BCCI chief hopes long season at home will bring India success

Mumbai: The BCCI is hopeful that the long season of international cricket at home will bring a lot of success to the Indian team which performed miserably last year when it was whitewashed in England and Australia.

"The Indian under-19 team won the junior World Cup. The senior team did not have a great year. I hope this domestic season, a long one, will give them sufficient success," said BCCI chief N Srinivasan here at his inaugural address during the Board`s annual awards function held last night. India had won the two-Test series at home against New Zealand 2-0 and are 1-0 up in the current four-match rubber against England. Four more Tests are to be played against Australia in February-March, 2013. Former India skipper Sunil Gavaskar was conferred with the C K Nayudu Award for lifetime achievement while Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli and the recently-retired V V S Laxman were also honoured in the presence of former cricketers, including former captain Mohd Azharuddin. Srinivasan said the Board has generated a lot of revenue because of the players and said the money was being used to improve the game all around in the country. "We have earned the revenue because of the players. There has been a lot of improvement in umpiring, pitches and infrastructure. Apart from the NCA we have other specialised cricket academies. We have 22 centres and almost all have created very good new infrastructure. "The IPL has generated lot of revenue and we have been able to create an outlay of Rs. 100 crore for the Test and first class cricketers," Srinivasan said. PTI