The working committee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) meets in Kovalam, Kerala Thursday and Friday to discuss the proposed integration of the Women's Cricket Association of India (WCAI).
 
Apart from benefiting from the BCCI-owned infrastructure and modern coaching methods, the WCAI wants to have a national schedule of matches in which their Tests and one-day internationals against visiting teams would not clash with the men's Tests and one-dayers.

"We will discuss the (merger) issue at the meeting," said BCCI vice-president Rajeev Shukla.

Even if a decision on merger is not taken at Kovalam, the BCCI, widely known for its lackadaisical ways of functioning, cannot avoid it for long as the International Cricket Council (ICC) has asked all its member countries to have a unified national body.

The ICC has led by example and merged with the International Women's Cricket Council (IWCC) this April. The world governing body now wants all the countries to follow its footsteps to promote the game without bias.

Australia and Sri Lanka have taken the lead, while Pakistan has also opened a women's wing in its office.

Although the BCCI's dislike of the merger is only too well known, WCAI secretary Shubhangi Kulkarni is hopeful that the women players would be able to use all the facilities meant exclusively for men sooner rather than later.

"We don't need their (BCCI's) money. We need their technical support and want our players to use their infrastructure," Shubhangi Kulkarni told IANS.

She said women players were not seeking a share of BCCI's bank balance.

"We need access to the BCCI's Bangalore-based National Cricket Academy and use their other facilities and infrastructure at different venues, like their five zonal academies," said the former India all-rounder who played 18 Tests and 27 one-day internationals between 1976 and 1991.

"More than that, we need BCCI's technical support, at the zonal centres, help from their psychologists and in modern methods of coaching etc." she said.

"This way we will have a uniform way of coaching and would also gain from the BCCI's infrastructure and technical help," said the Pune-based 45-year-old.

Shubhangi said the women players could also gain from the marketing methods of the BCCI.

"BCCI has marketed the men's game very well. Maybe we could also gain in that aspect after the merger," she said, but hastened to add that WCAI would not depend on BCCI for sponsors.

"If women play well sponsors will come. And women can play well as our team showed in the World Cup in South Africa in April," she said.

India upset all calculations to reach the final of the World Cup final in April, but they eventually lost to a much superior Australia.

Shubhangi pointed out that the team was in the middle of a three-year sponsorship commitment by Sahara India.

"We have also been helped by Infosys, CitiBank, and they are still supporting our development programme," she averred.

"So, we are not looking for the BCCI's money. We have got very good talent in the country. It's only a mater of nurturing it properly," she stressed.

ICC merged with IWCC two days after the World Cup final in South Africa in April, and the integration will be formally recognised at ICC's annual meetings this June.

ICC has formed a Women's Cricket Committee, chaired by the former IWCC vice-president Betty Timmer, on which Shubhangi is the Asian representative.

This committee will make recommendations to the ICC Development Committee on all matters relating to women's cricket.

ICC has also employed Megan Smith as the Women's Project Officer.

Shubhangi said that the ICC had given BCCI a maximum of a year to integrate WCAI with it.