India’s once-unshakeable dominance in Test cricket has slipped significantly over the last 18 months, with consecutive home series defeats exposing gaps that had long been masked by white-ball success. Since 2012, India had not lost a single Test series at home, but the 3-0 whitewash by New Zealand in 2024 and the 2-0 defeat to South Africa in 2025 ended that era abruptly.
With senior pillars such as Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and R. Ashwin retired, the transition phase has highlighted the need for a deeper red-ball structure.At the centre of the BCCI’s overhaul is young talent like Vaibhav Suryawanshi, who is part of a carefully designed pathway aimed at rebuilding India’s Test depth.
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The revamped Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Bengaluru, replacing the old NCA, will now serve as the primary engine for long-format development.The first major step is the intra-CoE four-day tournament scheduled for June–July, involving 64 under-25 players.
Divided into four squads, they will play multi-day matches across varied surfaces to test technique, temperament and match awareness — key attributes for long-format cricket.Selection for this pool will come through age-group tournaments, standout domestic performers, and promising IPL names such as Suryawanshi, ensuring high-potential players already exposed to top cricket are not left out of the red-ball progression.Performances in this tournament will form the basis for selecting India’s U-19 and Emerging squads for the upcoming four-day tour to Sri Lanka.
