The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) diktat on having restricted access of family members to team hotel during Tour has been widely criticised. After the Australia Tour, where India lost 1-3, the BCCI released released a 10-point guideline restricted the time families were allowed to spend with the players during any foreign tour. However, recently, Virat Kohli has expressed his disappointment and stressed on the importance of players having their loved ones close to them during high-pressure situations – particularly during overseas tours.
Cheteshwar Pujara also supports Kohli in this regard.
“I would say that families should be traveling. They should be with the players, the window. I mean, there are times where the families are there throughout the series. You as a player, you know, professionally, you want to be attending your practice sessions. So there has to be a window,” Pujara said on Firstpost.
“Normally what most of the teams do is they have a window of two or three weeks in a long tour. So if you are going away from home for 40 days, there are three weeks where families can travel. So that’s the best way to balance it out, because there are times where coaching staff or the management feels that if the families are traveling, then players are not focused enough, which may not be the case,” he added.
“But just to balance it out, I think if you have a proper window where families can travel and at the same time, if you are going there early for preparation, then players are just focusing on the preparation part. And then when it starts you have to three weeks window where families can travel,” Pujara said.
During the recently-concluded Champions Trophy, players like Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja, and Mohammed Shami had their families with them in Dubai but did not stay at the team hotel. The expenses for their stay were borne by the players, not the BCCI.
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