Hyderabad Cricket Association president Mohammed Azharuddin disagrees with India skipper Virat Kohli's view that Test matches in India should be played only at five permanent venues or centres.
The former India captain Azharuddin, who is in Mumbai for BCCI's Annual General Meeting, said that all centres wanted to host Test matches. “What will happen to all the stadia being built by other state associations? Why do we have them? Test cricket is very important and all want to host them. Why should they only host T20 internationals and One-Day Internationals? Let people in all parts of country see it,” Azharuddin said.
Kohli, while responding to a question on the lack of spectators in Ranchi for the third and final Test, suggested that India should have only five designated Test venues. The model is followed by Australian and England cricket boards.
Earlier, BCCI had eight main Test venues but then encouraged other states to create top-class infrastructure by giving them subsidies and subsequently added more venues for the Test matches. However, the continuous drop in the number of spectators in the stadiums is a growing concern now.
Coming back to the India-South Africa Test series, Azharuddin said that the present South African team appeared to be the weakest to tour India. India thrashed the Proteas 3-0 in the Test series. “They (South Africa) appear to be the weakest, though they gave a tough time to India last year when it toured South Africa. But they are also in transition. The conditions are not easy—the wickets afforded turn,” said Azharuddin, who has played against the strong South African teams in his playing days.
He lauded India's pace attack for the convincing performance. “Our pace attack is currently the best in the world.”
Speaking about first-class cricket, Azharuddin said that money was not necessarily the main concern. Nurturing talent and improving the standard were more important. “Money is not the issue. Money is not everything. We need talented cricketers to come through. If our cricket is good, money will automatically come.”
Sourav Ganguly, who will take charge as BCCI president on October 23, had suggested that first-class cricket was a major area of concern and that everything related to it needed to improve.
