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‘We have to do some soul-searching’: BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia on embarrassing Indian defeats in Ireland and England

India lost eight out of the full nine white-ball games that were played in the United Kingdom in the months of June and July.

Updated on: Sep 3, 2026, 21:47:59 IST
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BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia has called for soul-searching over embarrassing defeats in Ireland and England in June-July. World champions India played minnows Ireland in Belfast but shockingly, they lost both T20I games. Then in England, they lost a five-T20I series 4-0, with one match being a washout. In the following ODI series, they once again came a cropper and lost 2-1. Basically, nine full white-ball games, and India lost 8 of them!

BCCI Secretary Devajit Saikia with BCCI CoE head VVS Laxman. (PTI)
BCCI Secretary Devajit Saikia with BCCI CoE head VVS Laxman. (PTI)

After a BCCI review meeting in Mumbai on Thursday, Saikia admitted that the Indian team played badly in the United Kingdom. "You all know that we lost matches in Ireland and also in England. We wanted to know what the reasons are, and we have to do some soul-searching about that. And in future, what we will be doing before going to any of the SENA countries, we have chopped out some strategies," he said.

Also Read: VVS Laxman to coach Indian men's team at Asian Games 2026

"Our main intention is that we should have the best team combination in the months of October, November next year, in the ODI World Cup. We have basically thought about what should be our way forward with our team preparation and all, because we have a lot of series now," he added.

The BCCI secretary also informed that the increasing cases of players' injury were also a matter of great concern and were discussed in the meeting that had Gautam Gambhir, Shreyas Iyer, Shubman Gill and VVS Laxman in attendance.

"Individual players are having injuries because they have to play a lot of matches. If you look at their schedule, if you look at England, a 15-player team went for the ODIs and out of the15, three to four players got injured.

"But they had played two months of IPL prior to that. So all this takes a toll on the health of the players also. And to avoid those kinds of situations, what is best we can do under the present windows and present FTPs, we are trying to find some ways out.

"The only challenges which we are facing is that there are too many matches in the year, and that is why in the next FTP, we will do certain things, we will take certain measures. We have instructed our FTP person, who we will be meeting very soon in various international forums, that our FTP should be scheduled in such a way that there is proper rest for the players as well as some kind of acclimatisation or some kind of friendly matches before any major series in SENA countries,” he said.

  • Prateek Srivastava
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    Prateek Srivastava

    Prateek Srivastava is a senior sports journalist having been in the profession for two decades now. He started his print career with the India Today Group and later also worked for the Asian Age.   In 2009, sensing the wind of change, he switched to the digital media and joined Mobile ESPN. There, he covered the 2011 Cricket World Cup and 2010 Hockey World Cup as a venue reporter. He did plenty of voice-over work too, over there.   After leaving Mobile ESPN, Prateek went on to work for Cricketnext, Gocricket and Cricbuzz. At Gocricket (Times Internet Limited), he covered the 2014 T20 World from Bangladesh. There he also received a team leadership award, given at the end of the month.   Prateek has also covered the 2016 T20 World Cup in India, this time working for Sportz Interactive. He also worked for Chinese giants Alibaba over two years and led their ""Short News"" content team at UC Browser.   While cricket is Prateek’s expertise, he has also done a lot of golf. In fact, he has covered India’s first two European Tour events back in the late noughties. He has also done extensive writing on football having been associated with the Indian Super League for three seasons. Finally, Prateek is a literature aficionado and swears by Philip Roth and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and when he doesn’t joke, he is usually quiet and at work.Read More

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