Sachin Tendulkar's 200th Test venue to be decided next week

The meeting of the Tours and Fixtures Committee of the BCCI which was earlier scheduled to be held in Mumbai on Thursday to decide on itinerary of the West Indies series has been deferred by a week now.

The decision to defer the meeting has been taken as there is no clear indication as to which city will host Sachin Tendulkar's 200th Test match although Mumbai and Kolkata are the two frontrunners for the historic match.

While BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel said that the BCCI was yet to take a decision on the date and venue of the meeting, a senior member of the Tours and Fixtures Committee informed PTI that "the meeting has now been deferred by a week".

Mumbai being Tendulkar's home city has the rightful claim to host the 200th Test match but BCCI president N Srinivasan has shown inclination towards allotting the match to Cricket Club of India's Brabourne Stadium instead of Wankhede Stadium which has hosted most of India's international matches in recent times including the World Cup final in 2011.

sachin-kotla-pti-630According to sources within the BCCI, Srinivasan does not want to award the match to Mumbai Cricket Association as Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar is all set to come back as the state unit president.

Srinivasan and Pawar are in different camps and that is said to be the reason that the BCCI president wants to award the match to CCI.

Kolkata's Eden Gardens has an outside chance if the BCCI-MCA spat continues while as per the Board's rotational policy, Bangalore's Chinnaswamy Stadium and Ahmedabad's Motera also remain in contention.

© PTI