India as `peculiar’ in making arrangements
.. .says they’ve yet to confirm arrival date for Caribbean tour

Senior Manager for Cricket West Indies (CWI), Roland Holder, has described India as “very peculiar in making their arrangements” after confirming that they have yet to confirm when they will arrive for their tour of the West Indies set to start on July 12 with the first Test at Windsor Park in Dominica.

The tourists will first fly to Barbados before being chartered to Dominica for the first Test. The series will consist of two Tests, three ODIs and five T20Is from July 12 to August 13.
Holder, speaking on the Mason & Guest radio show on Tuesday night, said India has yet to confirm when they will be arriving for the tour.

“They are still working through their flight options but they are anticipating arriving on July 1,” said Holder.

“It varies from country to country,” he said about teams communicating their plans for tours quickly.

“India are very peculiar in making their arrangements and things are subject to change with them very often. You don’t always get the confirmations you need in your time; you probably get it in their time,” he added.

The former West Indies batter said the original plan was for India to arrive on July 1 and play a four-day warm-up game at a later date but the Indians had other ideas.

There’s usually a discussion between both countries as to what they want to happen. The FTP has India arriving on July 1 and there was to be a four-day warm-up game. They subsequently said they don’t necessarily want that so they’ll confirm when they will arrive,” Holder said.

“They didn’t confirm so we couldn’t confirm when they will arrive. In the last few days, they have come back with some options which have reverted to arriving potentially on June 30th or July 1, which I’ve communicated to the relevant parties,” he added.

Holder added that their lack of confirmation means important logistical matters like booking charter flights and hotels are delayed.

“Potentially, we have them arriving in Dominica on July 7th, but I’m waiting on confirmation from them. Without that confirmation, we have them booked for July 9.

“Until they can confirm when they want to go to Dominica, I can’t necessarily go to the hotel and the charter airline companies and say I need a flight for this day or I need a room for this day. While I can alert them, I can’t confirm. We are working all those options so we can swiftly put plans in place once we know what is happening,” he said. (Sportsmax).