India's home season: Major Test venues set to miss out on England series
Mohali and Indore are among venues to get two games after missing out on World Cup hosting rights
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Jul-2023
India's five-Test series against England will include no matches in the country's five biggest cities • BCCI
Mohali, Indore, Rajkot and Visakhapatnam will host two games each during India's 2023-24 home season, which will feature series against Australia (three ODIs and five T20Is), Afghanistan (three T20Is) and England (five Tests). The BCCI may have awarded extra games to these four venues since they are missing out on the ODI World Cup in October-November.
Among other venues that missed out on the World Cup, Thiruvananthapuram, Guwahati, Nagpur and Ranchi will also host matches during the 2023-24 bilateral season. Of the cities that are set to host World Cup games, only Hyderabad - where Australia will play one T20I and England one Test - Bengaluru and Dharamsala have been awarded bilateral games.
With the bilateral calendar skewed away from the traditional venues, England will play none of their five Tests at India's five biggest cities (Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Bengaluru). Instead, their tour will take them to Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Rajkot, Ranchi and Dharamsala. All five of these grounds have hosted five Tests or fewer.
India's first assignment in this home season is the ODI series against Australia, scheduled to run from September 22 to 27 in the immediate lead-up to the World Cup. The T20I series begins on November 23, four days after the World Cup final, and runs until December 3.
After this, India are scheduled to tour South Africa for three T20Is (December 10 to 14), three ODIs (December 17 to 21) and two Tests (December 26-30 and January 3-7). They will get only a three-day break before the home T20I series against Afghanistan from January 11 to 17. This will be Afghanistan's first-ever white-ball bilateral series against India. Their only previous match against India in India was their inaugural Test match in June 2018. India has, however, served as Afghanistan's "home" venue in bilateral series against Ireland, Bangladesh and West Indies.
It's likely that a number of India's Test players will get a break from the Afghanistan T20Is, allowing them to recuperate ahead of the first Test against England, which begins on January 25. That series is scheduled to run until March 11, with eight-day gaps between the second and third Tests and the fourth and fifth Tests.