Powerful BCCI Fails To Ensure Warm-Up Games For Team India In England

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) may be called the strongest and the richest board in the world but it seems it doesn't hold enough clout to get some county games for its team that

"We obviously wanted first-class games, which I believe have not been given to us. I don't know what the reasons for that are," said Kohli.

The intra-squad, expected to be two in number, will be played next month with the 24 members barely making two teams. India also have the option of calling up some players like former India opener Faiz Fazal and Mumbai batsman Siddhesh Lad who are playing league cricket in the United Kingdom at least to add to the squad for intra-squad warm-up matches.

Some of the other top Indian international players like Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw, Devdutt Padikkal, Hardik Pandya among others, will be busy playing white-ball series in Sri Lanka during July and won't be able to make it to England.

It then looks likely that the team will have to prepare with what they have in England. At best, those intra-squad games will be glorified nets. "I think our preparation time will be ample for us to be ready for the first Test," said Kohli.

However, as was proved by the loss in the WTC final, before which the Indians played an intra-squad game, a preparation without competitive games against county teams isn't enough. BCCI may have known it but then it doesn't seem to have the heft to push its case with the ECB or the ICC.