BCCI Focus on Red Ball Cricket: After the defeats in the home Test series against New Zealand and South Africa in 2024 and 2025, BCCI has decided to nurture young talent in red ball cricket. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has prepared a roadmap to strengthen the future of Test cricket.

This plan has been made in the Center of Excellence (COE) led by VVS Laxman, in which there will be a special focus on the young 'Generation Z' players.

BCCI made master plan

Under this master plan, an intra-COE tournament will be organized in COE, Bengaluru in June-July, in which 64 top young cricketers under the age of 25 years will participate. The objective of this tournament is to strengthen India's red ball talent pool for the next decade and create a strong supply chain. In this, young stars like Vaibhav Suryavanshi and Ayush Mhatre will get a chance to play a four-day red ball match.

These players have already left their mark in the IPL and are now ready to prove their ability in the longer format.

How will 64 players be selected?

25 players (U-23): These players will be selected by the Junior Selection Committee, who will be performing well in the Cooch Behar (U-19) and CK Nayudu (U-22) tournaments.

25 players (U-23 and U-25): Will be selected by the senior selection committee, who will have performed in Ranji Trophy, Vijay Hazare Trophy and Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, but will not be part of the IPL team.

14 Players: Young superstars, who are playing in IPL.

These include names like Ayush Mhatre, Vaibhav Suryavanshi and Sameer Rizvi.

Matches will be held like this in Intra-COE tournament

64 young players will be divided into four teams, each team will have 16 players. Every team will get a chance to play two four-day matches in COE. Matches will be held on different pitch conditions so that players can get good match practice.

25 players will get a big opportunity

After the tournament, a core group of 25 players will be selected, who will be part of the India Emerging and India A teams.

These players will also go on shadow tours. According to BCCI's plan, after the end of IPL, both India U-19 and Emerging (U-25) teams will tour Sri Lanka, where four-day matches will be played. Team selection will be based on the performance in the Intra-CoE tournament. Apart from this, the focus of most of the high performance camps being held in COE for the next one year will be on developing red ball talent. The entire roadmap will be prepared by including senior chief selector Ajit Agarkar and head coach Gautam Gambhir.