Almost half of the major tournaments in the domestic calendar may have been over, but the real deal begins on Thursday. The Ranji Trophy — in its 85th edition — will return with a lot more action, thanks to the addition of a plethora of new teams.
If one has to sum up the common factor across all the 37 teams at the start of the premier domestic competition, it would be ‘confusion’. Not just on one account but on a variety of issues:
New qualification system
The tournament will follow the qualification system that was in place for the Vijay Hazare Trophy. As a result, five teams from a combined pool of two Elite groups of nine teams each, two from Group C of 10 teams and one from the Plate Group of nine teams will qualify for the knockouts. The most confusing is the system followed in the top two groups.
The system — primarily devised due to the Committee of Administrators’ diktat of one team from the pool of new teams must feature in the knockouts — effectively means that five of the top 18 teams in India will progress to the quarterfinals.
What’s intriguing is the standings of two different groups will be combined despite each team not having played against half the sides in the pool of 18. As a result, the teams will be forced to factor in the performance of teams in the other group as well besides tracking those in their own group.
If one group has plenty of results and the other is dominated by draws, it could well happen that, purely based on points accumulated, all five teams that qualify may be from one group. To avoid that, teams are hoping for rational pitches.
Neutral curators
To maintain the balance in the top two groups, neutral curators — introduced last season — will play a crucial role in terms of offering sporting pitches for all the games. There were sparse cases of a certain venue being looked after by local groundsmen who tried their best to lend advantage to the home team.
Despite such glitches, a majority of the teams were satisfied with the pitches on offer last season. And all the teams are keeping their fingers crossed over the kind of surfaces they would get this season.
Player availability
As if India’s international fixtures weren’t enough to dilute the Ranji Trophy, the addition of India-A series in New Zealand will further weaken the domestic teams. No doubt, the India-A exposure is paramount in player development, but the BCCI will have to think of how to achieve it without the domestic circuit suffering.
So unsettled will some of the top teams be, with players coming in and going away, that they may well have three or four captains through the tournament.
New teams galore
Thanks to the administrative reforms, the BCCI was forced to add nine teams this time around. The only good thing is all the rookies — Puducherry, Bihar, Nagaland, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Sikkim — are clubbed in Group D.
With a majority of these outfits having been awarded First Class status, especially the ones from the north-east, despite the lack of basic cricket culture and infrastructure, it could well happen that most of these teams will rely heavily on professional recruits.
