The Indian team will tour the West Indies for seven weeks, starting July 6, for four Tests and two practice matches. The Tests will be played in Antigua and Barbuda, Jamaica, St Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago.
The tour will start with a two-day practice match from July 9 in St Kitts followed by a three-day warm-up match from July 14 at the same venue. The first Test will begin from July 21, the second from July 30, the third from August 9 and the last one from August 18.
Head of operations at the West Indies Cricket Board, Roland Holder, said all four venues “are ready to host the visiting Indian team.”
Last December, the top brass of both BCCI and WICB had met in India following which WICB president Dave Cameron had said that the Indian board would honour the four-Test series, listed in the ICC’s Future Tours Programme. The series was in doubt after the BCCI had suspended all bilateral ties immediately after West Indies had pulled out of the India tour mid-way in October 2014.
Last month, former BCCI president Shashank Manohar told ESPNcricinfo that the board had waived off the $41.97 million damages imposed by the previous BCCI administration on the WICB for abandoning the 2014 tour. Manohar had said the WICB had guaranteed West Indies would return to India in 2017 to complete the unfinished matches.
The Indian team is expected to depart for the Caribbean with a new coaching staff, applications for which were advertised by the BCCI on Wednesday. The deadline for the applications is June 10 and the new staff is expected to be announced by June 25.
