In what is another of many ‘firsts’ for Indian cricket in recent years, the BCCI has this year outsourced the scheduling of its entire domestic circuit to a private company.
The BCCI, after having recently brought on board a new general manager (operations) in Saba Karim alongside other recruitments, including the hiring of hospitality-industry professional Tufan Ghosh as the COO at the National Cricket Academy (NCA), has distanced itself from the fundamental responsibility of scheduling the country’s vast domestic season.
The Indian cricket board has outsourced this responsibility to ‘Sportsmechanics’, a company founded by the Indian team’s former video analyst S Ramakrishnan, popularly known as ‘Ramky’ in the cricket circles.
On its website, Sportsmechanics, as a company, announces itself as a platform to implement “top-notch solutions with agile advisory services, advance analytics and technology platforms to help sports bodies, athletes, teams, brands and broadcasters achieve better outcomes”.
Despite a full-fledged staff in place, which includes a team of operations executives, the BCCI refused to take up the responsibility of scheduling the 2018-19 domestic calendar – a decision that had the backing of the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA).