Former captain Dilip Vengsarkar’s proposal to make it mandatory for international players to play the Irani Cup and Duleep Trophy was dismissed by the members of the BCCI apex council during its meeting on Sunday evening.

Vengsarkar is a member of the apex council which also includes, among others, Board president Roger Binny and secretary Jay Shah.

Sources told The Telegraph that Vengsarkar raised the issue when cricketing matters came up for discussion and appealed for an annual window in July and August which would allow all international cricketers to take part. The domestic players would then to able to test their skills against the best.

Jay Shah. File photo

Vengsarkar’s proposal, however, didn’t find many takers since the office-bearers felt international commitments would make it impossible for the stars to participate this time. Vengsarkar didn’t answer calls or respond to text messages from The Telegraph.

India are likely to play limited overs series against Afghanistan and Ireland before making a full tour of the West Indies to play two Tests, three ODIs and three T20Is following the World Test Championship final in June. That will be followed by the Asia Cup and an ODI series against Australia at home.

The BCCI, in effect, decided to start the domestic season with the Duleep Trophy from June 28 followed by Deodhar Trophy from July 24 and Irani Cup from October 1.

It was learnt that Vengsarkar, a former national selection committee chairman, told the meeting that young domestic batters could gain immensely by playing against a Ravichandran Ashwin/Ravindra Jadeja or a Jasprit Bumrah/Mohammed Shami. Similarly, a Mukesh Kumar or a Shahbaz Ahmed could test themselves against the likes of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. Runs or wickets versus the star cricketers would be a great indicator while judging the players’ abilities.

There has been a lot of talk about the batters’ inability to play spin, which led to their defeat in the third Test of the recent series against Australia at home. The Australian spinners accounted for 45 wickets, as against their pacers who took five, in the four-match series which India won 2-1.

The Indian batters have been exposed badly on turning wickets of late, lacking the basic skills to play the spinners. Several former players have cited the star players’ lack of domestic cricket as the reason behind their failure to tackle spin.

The idea of fielding a second-string side against the likes of Afghanistan and Ireland to make some of the stars available for the Irani Cup and Duleep Trophy during July-August was also toyed with, but that too was shot down.

A source present at the meeting said Vengsarkar was left disappointed and frustrated by the Board office-bearers’ decision to dismiss his proposal. It remains to be seen if his idea is considered during the next season or the administrators continue to have their say.

Allowances hiked

The apex council also approved the increase in daily allowance of office-bearers which has been in effect since October last year.

A BCCI office-bearer now receives a daily allowance of $1000 while on foreign tours and flies first-class.

They will also be entitled to Rs 40,000 per day for meetings within India and business class travel. The same applies for apex council members. The Cricket Advisory Committee members will be paid Rs 3.5 lakh for each meeting.