The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) shifted the second Test from Mumbai to the southern city of Chennai in the only change for next month’s two-match series.
The first Test will be played as scheduled in the western city of Ahmedabad from Dec 11-15, while Chennai will host the second Test from Dec 19-23.
The series will be preceded by a three-day practice match in Vadodara from Dec 5-7, the statement from BCCI secretary N. Srinivasan added.
The statement did not say if England, who were due to fly home later on Friday after cancelling the last two matches of a one-day series, had accepted the revised itinerary.
England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) official Hugh Morris, who held talks with Indian officials until late Thursday, had said earlier he expected the Test series to go ahead.
“The players are keen to play international cricket,” Morris said. “The Test matches are in place as it stands and at the moment our plan is to come back. If our security report says it is safe and secure to do so, that is what we will do.”
However, England captain Kevin Pietersen, speaking to Sky Sports ahead of the team’s departure, said no player could be forced to play.
“We need to make sure the security is right – but if it is not safe then we won’t be coming back,” he said.
“People are their own people. I will never force anyone to do anything or tell them to do anything against their will.
“On the field I may ask people to do things in a certain way but people run their own lives. We will have to see how the security is.”
Former England captain Michael Vaughan said he and the rest of the performance squad would have been in Mumbai, and possibly in one of the hotels targeted by gunmen, if they had not been moved to Bangalore.
“It was only at the last minute it was switched, I don’t know why,” Vaughan wrote in his Daily Telegraph column.
“We could have been there in one of those hotels when they were attacked.
“All our test kit is in the Taj Mahal hotel where one of the sieges has been going on. It was deposited there after England’s two practice games there. That’s how close the danger is.
“I can imagine the [one-day] England squad must have been going through some really tough meetings. Some players will have wanted to go home permanently some will have wanted to stay.
“I just hope the decision to return for the Tests is taken out of their hands and that it is not a financial decision but is made with their well being, and the supporters and media, first and foremost.”
India, cricket’s commercial powerhouse which contributes an estimated 70 percent of the sport’s revenues, is determined to put the sport back on track quickly after the attacks which killed at least 130 people.
BCCI vice-president Lalit Modi, the brain behind the lucrative Twenty20 revolution, said he was unfazed by the cancellation of the England one-dayers and the multi-million dollar Champions League.
“In the circumstances it was the right thing to do but there is no doubt cricket will start again soon,” Modi told reporters in Mumbai.
Modi insisted that the inaugural Twenty20 Champions League from Dec 3-10 had been postponed due to logistical problems, rather than security fears.
Mumbai was due to host three of the 15 games in the six-million dollar tournament featuring leading Twenty20 teams from Australia, South Africa, India, England and Pakistan.
“All the teams wanted the Champions League to go ahead and only wanted Mumbai removed as a venue,” Modi said.
“But it was not logistically possible to change a venue at such short notice so we proposed it be postponed.
“But I can assure you it will be held soon, and in India.”—Agencies