BCCI announces Ranji Trophy league stage between February 16 and March 5

The Ranji Trophy 2022, which was postponed earlier in the wake of the Covid-19 upsurge in India, is set to commence from February 16, it is learnt.

With their hands tied due to the pandemic situation, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has been forced to adopt a new format for the premier domestic tournament this year as eight groups of four teams each will feature with the six teams slotted in one Plate group, the games of which will be played simultaneously.

As per the original plan, the groupings had 30 Elite and eight Plate teams, but in the current plan, the combination will be 32 Elites and six Plate teams.

Furthermore, as per the new schedule, the group stage fixtures will be held across nine cities – Chennai, Ahmedabad, Thiruvananthapuram, Bengaluru, Rajkot, Cuttack, Guwahati, Kolkata and Hyderabad.

The board president Sourav Ganguly had earlier suggested that the BCCI was mulling a six-group format with six teams in each group, although those plans could not go forward thanks to the Covid-enforced time constraint. Further, with the IPL’s 15th edition slated to start in March end and scheduled to run until the last week of May, the BCCI understandably had a race against time.

Meanwhile, as it now stands, the tournament will be played in two phases, scheduled on either side of the 2022 IPL, with the league stage running between February 16 and March 5 followed by the knockouts in June with the IPL sandwiched in between.

“The board has decided to conduct the Ranji Trophy this season in two phases. In the first phase, we plan to complete all matches of the league stage while the knockouts will be held in June,” BCCI secretary Jay Shah had said in a release earlier this month.

The Ranji Trophy was earlier set to commence on January 13 but was postponed indefinitely amidst the deteriorating pandemic situation, with India battling a horrific third wave.

“BCCI does not want to compromise the safety of the players, support staff, match officials and other participants involved and hence, has decided to put the three tournaments on hold till further notice,” Shad had said in a release.

This is the second year in a row that India’s domestic cricket has been impacted by Covid-19. The Ranji Trophy was cancelled in its entirety last year for the first time in its 85-year history.