Indian legends Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli returned to domestic cricket in some style, as they both smashed massive daddy hundreds in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. However, this has exposed BCCI’s ignorance towards domestic cricket, as fans failed to catch a glimpse of the innings played by the global stars.
Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli featured for their respective state teams, Mumbai and Delhi, in the ongoing Vijay Hazare Trophy, and the tickets were not on sale for the matches despite the intense excitement shown by the Indian fans. Moreover, the fans were unable to catch glimpses of their favourite stars as well, since the BCCI failed at broadcasting the matches properly.
The BCCI had decided just to telecast two of the matches from the first round of the Vijay Hazare Trophy, and it did not feature the two greats. They further received immense criticism for the quality of the footage that was released of the two innings. Some also trolled and questioned the BCCI if it was extracted using a CCTV.
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BCCI’s excessive priority for international matches has left domestic fixtures ignored
The BCCI Selectors asked the international greats to feature in domestic cricket, but they would have never thought that the immense fanbase for the veterans would tarnish their image by keeping low standards of broadcast.
One of the most influential and powerful boards in international cricket, the BCCI still cannot manage to improve its broadcasting standards in domestic cricket. They have been seen largely prioritizing the IPL as well as international matches, since the broadcast is often of the finest quality, but have failed to maintain standards domestically.
They have ignored domestic cricket in recent times, since domestic games do not produce a large amount of revenue for the BCCI. IPL, which is a private league managed by the BCCI, gives them huge revenue, as the broadcasting rights are sold for millions and billions. As a result of these, the BCCI keeps a very low budget for domestic fixtures.
BCCI’s domestic matches lack a centralized broadcast standard
The Indian board slowly took the top position as one of the leading boards in world cricket and has flexed its sheer domination in the sport. In the case of international broadcasts, high-resolution cameras and high-resolution equipment are used by the official broadcast partners.
However, in domestic matches where there are no official broadcasting partners and they do not generate revenue for the BCCI, poor-quality and outdated equipment is used. Another major fiasco that has turned up is the lack of a central standard for broadcasting in domestic games.
The state federations do not have a standard to maintain the quality of the recordings during the matches. Moreover, they too are aware that those videos or footage would not be made public and will be used only within the BCCI, which limits the quality further.
Domestic matches in India are not treated as fan-facing products
Unlike many other cricket boards, like Cricket Australia and the ECB, the BCCI does not treat its domestic games as a commercialized event for the fans to witness and enjoy. While the County Championship and the Sheffield Shield matches witness a wave of crowds, the Ranji Trophy is mostly played behind closed doors or with empty stands.
Even in white-ball cricket, the Indian domestic tournaments do not have much awareness among their fans, since they are meant only for the development of state cricketers. Such games are recorded in order to analyse their forms and scouting of the players by the national, domestic, and IPL scouts.
If they fail to treat the domestic games as a fan-facing product and also draw a significant amount of revenue from the matches, then the improvement of the quality of domestic footage is highly unlikely.
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