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Team India to get new chief coach in September
New Delhi: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will decide on a new chief coach for the national team next month, BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur said on Thursday.
Thakur said the decision in this regard will be taken in consultation with the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) before the start of the home series against South Africa in October.
“I think it is very important to have a full-time coach for any team. We have taken some time to decide and most probably in the month of September, we will finalise the coach,” Thakur told official broadcasters ‘Sony Six’.
“Shashri is holding the position of the director for the last few months and he has done well with the Indian cricket team, the boys have given us a good feedback about him, so the only issue is if we want a full time coach then what would be the set-up. We can’t be having 10 people with the Indian cricket team,” he added.
“So we have left it to the Cricket Advisory Committee to decide how many people will be required, how many coaches will be required, whether a bowling coach, a batting coach, a full-time coach or a director. Let them take a call, come back to BCCI in September and before the South Africa series, I can assure you that we will take a call on that.”
The BCCI’s opposition to the Decision Review System (DRS) has come back to haunt the Indian team on several occasions, but Thakur said that the board is not ready change its stance on the technology just yet.
“It is not about an individual or an association to be against a system. I think we have to see why we don’t have a 100 percent system, or we have to make our mind that it is not going to be 100 percent,” Thakur said.
“I think if you look at the past few months, you will see that we have lost many matches and then we come back and say ‘oh, we have lost this match, let’s look at the DRS’.
“I think it is not only when we lose a match we should look at the system but we need to look at the overall feasibility of it, whether it is practical, whether it is close to 100 percent, whether it will help the decision to be implemented, if that is there, we have never closed our mind to that,” he added.
International Cricket Committee (ICC) general manager Geoff Allardice and ICC cricket committee chief Anil Kumble – who is also the chairman of the BCCI’s technical committee – travelled to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US recently where they discussed the scheduled testing of the performance of review technologies being used in cricket with engineers from MIT’s field intelligence lab.
“Anil Kumble and others had gone to the US to look at the system and see if we can improve it further. I think there are areas where we can look at and improve it to next level. If that is possible, the options are never closed.”
The State Scores Extra High on Gaming-Friendly Industry Index
Meghalaya scored 92.85 out of 100 possible points in a Gaming Industry Index and proved to be India’s most gaming-friendly state following its recent profound legislation changes over the field allowing land-based and online gaming, including games of chance, under a licensing regime.
The index by the UK India Business Council (UKIBC) uses a scale of 0 to 100 to measure the level of legalisation on gambling and betting achieved by a state based on the scores over a set of seven different games – lottery, horse racing, betting on sports, poker, rummy, casino and fantasy sports
Starting from February last year, Meghalaya became the third state in India’s northeast to legalise gambling and betting after Sikkim and Nagaland. After consultations with the UKIBC, the state proceeded with the adoption of the Meghalaya Regulation of Gaming Act, 2021 and the nullification of the Meghalaya Prevention of Gambling Act, 1970. Subsequently in December, the Meghalaya Regulation of Gaming Rules, 2021 were notified and came into force.
All for the Tourists
The move to legalise and license various forms of offline and online betting and gambling in Meghalaya is aimed at boosting tourism and creating jobs, and altogether raising taxation revenues for the northeastern state. At the same time, the opportunities to bet and gamble legally will be reserved only for tourists and visitors.
“We came out with a Gaming Act and subsequently framed the Regulation of Gaming Rules, 2021. The government will accordingly issue licenses to operate games of skill and chance, both online and offline,” said James P. K. Sangma, Meghalaya State Law and Taxation Minister speaking in the capital city of Shillong. “But the legalized gambling and gaming will only be for tourists and not residents of Meghalaya,” he continued.
To be allowed to play, tourists and people visiting the state for work or business purposes will have to prove their non-resident status by presenting appropriate documents, in a process similar to a bank KYC (Know Your Customer) procedure.
Meghalaya Reaches Out to a Vast Market
With 140 millions of people in India estimated to bet regularly on sports, and a total of 370 million desi bettors around prominent sporting events, as per data from one of the latest reports by Esse N Videri, Meghalaya is set to reach out and take a piece of a vast market.
Estimates on the financial value of India’s sports betting market, combined across all types of offline channels and online sports and cricket predictions and betting platforms, speak about amounts between $130 and $150 billion (roughly between ₹9.7 and ₹11.5 lakh crore).
Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Delhi are shown to deliver the highest number of bettors and Meghalaya can count on substantial tourists flow from their betting circles. The sports betting communities of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana are also not to be underestimated.
Among the sports, cricket is most popular, registering 68 percent of the total bet count analyzed by Esse N Videri. Football takes second position with 11 percent of the bets, followed by betting on FIFA at 7 percent and on eCricket at 5 percent. The last position in the Top 5 of popular sports for betting in India is taken by tennis with 3 percent of the bet count.
Local Citizens will Still have Their Teer Betting
Meghalaya residents will still be permitted to participate in teer betting over arrow-shooting results. Teer is a traditional method of gambling, somewhat similar to a lottery draw, and held under the rules of the Meghalaya Regulation of the Game of Arrow Shooting and the Sale of Teer Tickets Act, 2018.
Teer includes bettors wagering on the number of arrows that reach the target which is placed about 50 meters away from a team of 20 archers positioned in a semicircle.
The archers shoot volleys of arrows at the target for ten minutes, and players place their bets choosing a number between 0 and 99 trying to guess the last two digits of the number of arrows that successfully pierce the target.
If, for example, the number of hits is 256, anyone who has bet on 56 wins an amount eight times bigger than their wager.
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