The Covid pandemic has affected every person in the world in some or another way. It has caused various companies to shut down and adversely affected industries. So much so that cricket too had to come to a halt in April 2020. It has since resumed with the help of bio-bubbles and strict covid protocols. All of this has made the scheduling of tours and match painfully difficult.
A lot of games under the Futures Tour Programme had to be canceled and even the IPL 2021 and PSL 2021 has to abruptly halt. In all of this, the financial model of the game had to be protected to keep the game viable for stakeholders. Therefore, prior commitments to broadcasters and boards had to be kept. This led to many teams sending different teams for simultaneously playing parallel series.
One team could not have played a series in one corner of the world and traveled to another corner while maintaining covid protocols. Therefore, different teams were sent to scheduled tours.
We look at a situation when a country has played two teams in two different tours simultaneously. The first instance in due to covid, however, the next ones are pre-covid instances.
1.India (England and Sri Lanka)
India went to England to play the WTC finals in mid-June against New Zealand. They had the, currently ongoing, test series against England from August first week. BCCI decided to send a complete team for the WTC finals which would continue to be in England throughout July to avoid any bio-bubble complication. It further decided to send a completely new team coached by Dravid to Sri Lanka for a white ball series. The Sri Lanka tour team was captained by Dhawan and the team played three ODIs and T20 each.
2.India (commonwealth games and Sahara cup)
The 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur clashed with the Sahara Cup tournament against Pakistan in Canada. The team was split into two with Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble, and VVS Laxman being part of a squad led by Ajay Jadeja that was sent to the CWG. On the other hand, a team comprising Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Javagal Srinath, and Venkatesh Prasad under Mohammad Azharuddin was sent for Sahara Cup.
The Commonwealth Games had 16 teams. India was put in Group B with Antigua, Australia, and Canada. The matches had a List A status and were played with the red ball and in white jerseys. India was out on the group stage after losing to Australia. Unfortunately, in the Sahara Cup too India was trashed 4-1 by Pakistan.
3.Australia and Australia A (1993 quadrangular series with Zimbabwe and England)
The 1994–95 World Series was a One Day International (ODI) cricket quadrangular where Australia played host to England and Zimbabwe. Initially, the tournament only consisted of a tri-nation series with the schedule being revealed on 21 October 1993 with the three teams playing each other four times which started on 2 December with England taking on Zimbabwe and ending on 12 January before a three-match final series which would go from the 15 to 19 January. A development team Australia A also took part in the tournament. Australia and Australia A reached the finals, which Australia won 2–0. The matches involving Australia A were not classified as official One Day Internationals.
4.1973 women’s World cup
The 1973 Women’s Cricket World Cup was the first tournament of its kind, held two years before the first limited-overs World Cup for men in 1975. England, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad, and Tobago, and Jamaica were joined by an International XI and a Young England side in a round-robin league that saw the top team win the World Cup. England topped the group with 20 points from their six matches, including five victories and one defeat, while Australia was runners up posting 17 points with four wins. The competition was won by the hosts, England.
