India packed with 9 ODI series in 5 yrs

New Delhi: The Indian cricket team will play as many as nine One-Day series abroad between 2006 and 2010, a top board official has disclosed.

And, this will not be part of the five-match annual One-Day series that India and Pakistan will be playing at a neutral venue for five years, starting this year or the next.

Lalit Modi, chief of the marketing sub-committee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), said the venues for the proposed overseas series could be as spread out as Singapore, Holland, Australia and Canada.

"We are proposing a tri-series with Australia and the West Indies in September overseas. There are four or five venues for this," Modi said.

A series with the West Indies, and possibly a third team, was proposed in Canada this year. But after the venue in Toronto (not Toronto Cricket Skating and the Curling Club) apparently could not meet the stipulated seating and other requirements for an international match, the BCCI is looking elsewhere.

"We are looking at Canada, Singapore, Holland and Australia. Australia has offered us their grounds, so we are examining all four grounds, and whichever is best suited we will play a tri-series there in September this year," he said.

Modi, who is also a BCCI vice-president, is looking four years from now, fixing schedules for overseas bilateral or triangular series.

"We are going to have the next series in June, which will be in the US or Europe," said Modi, disclosing the series in the pipeline.

"Thereafter, there will be series in June 2008, May, July and September 2009 and May, July and September 2010. They all will be played abroad."

Modi, also president of the Rajasthan Cricket Association, said the structure of these competitions and opponents had not been finalised yet.

"We haven't decided whether they will be triangular or bilateral series, but there are Pakistan in it, Australia, South Africa and West Indies," he said.

"These are the four countries we are examining for playing on off-shore venues. As and when we reach the final agreement in terms of venues we will finalise those series one by one."

But while finalising these One-Day jaunts, the BCCI will have to ensure that it did not exceed the maximum 30 One-Day Internationals and 15 Test matches in a 12-month period as per the Future Tours Programme (FTP) of the International Cricket Council.

According to the FTP, India is scheduled to play 24-27 ODIs in 2006-07, 35-43 in 2007-08, 28 in 2008-09, 24-29 in 2009-10, 32-39 in 2010-11 and 21-24 matches in 2011-12.

Over the six-year period, India will be playing anything between 173 and 203 One-Day Internationals. This is the most hectic schedule of the 10-Test playing nations.