The Board of Control for Cricket in India has for the first time established a structured support framework for the Cricket Association for the Blind in India, covering both the men’s and women’s visually impaired national teams, the board announced in February 2026. The move, confirmed by BCCI officials, marks a significant shift for a discipline that has produced multiple world titles for India while operating for years with minimal institutional backing.
What the Framework Provides
Under the new arrangement, the BCCI will fund international travel for two overseas tournaments annually for the blind cricket teams, provide accommodation for home and visiting sides during bilateral series hosted in India, and grant access to BCCI-affiliated stadiums and grounds for both domestic and international fixtures. The package addresses logistical costs that had previously been shouldered largely by CABI itself and by individual state associations with limited resources, some of which had struggled in past years to fund even basic domestic tournaments.
A Track Record Ahead of the Support
The timing is notable because India’s blind cricket teams had already achieved outsized success well before receiving formal board backing, including multiple men’s World Cup titles and the women’s team’s triumph at the inaugural Blind Women’s T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka in 2025, where India beat Nepal by seven wickets in the final of a tournament that also featured Australia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the United States. That success, achieved largely through grassroots effort, is widely seen as the catalyst that finally prompted the BCCI to formalize its support structures.
Officials Frame It as Inclusion, Not Charity
BCCI President Mithun Manhas said the support was designed to “strengthen opportunities, infrastructure and exposure” for the teams, framing it as part of the board’s broader commitment to “inclusive growth” in Indian cricket. Honorary Secretary Devajit Saikia added that the framework ensures visually impaired cricketers have “the facilities and assistance needed to compete with confidence both at home and overseas,” language that officials from the Differently Abled Cricket Council of India welcomed as validating years of advocacy work.
Reaction From the Disability Cricket Community
Officials from the Differently Abled Cricket Council of India described the move as transformative, with one calling it a step that provides “direction to thousands of dreams” for aspiring visually impaired cricketers across the country. Advocates have long argued that access to proper grounds, funded travel and structured fixtures — rather than one-off grants — was the missing piece needed to sustain the sport’s competitive gains at junior levels across India’s diverse regional associations.
CABI’s Long Road to Recognition
The Cricket Association for the Blind in India has operated for decades largely on the strength of volunteer administrators, state-level fundraising and the personal commitment of players who often balanced international representation with day jobs, given the absence of any central contract or stipend structure. That grassroots model produced world-beating results, including India men’s multiple World Cup titles for the blind format, but left the sport perpetually vulnerable to funding gaps that could derail a tour or domestic season with little warning. The BCCI’s new framework is the first time that vulnerability has been directly addressed at the level of India’s richest cricket board.
A Model for Other Boards
India’s move is likely to be watched closely by cricket boards in Australia, England and Pakistan, where disability cricket programs exist but with varying degrees of board-level integration; England’s ECB, for instance, runs its own disability fixture calendar but funding models differ from board to board. CABI’s success in translating grassroots results into board support may offer a template for advocacy groups in other cricketing nations pushing for similar institutional recognition in the years ahead.
What’s Next
With BCCI backing now formalized, CABI is expected to plan an expanded international calendar for both its men’s and women’s teams, using the funded overseas tours to build toward future ICC-recognized disability cricket events. The move also raises the question of whether the BCCI will extend similar structured frameworks to other disability cricket disciplines, such as deaf or physical-disability cricket, in the coming seasons ahead, a question CABI officials say they intend to raise directly with the board in follow-up discussions.