For the first time in 15 seasons, the Ranji Trophy will have separate Elite and Plate league final, with the Board of Control for Cricket in India announcing a full-fledged domestic season on Monday.
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The Ranji Trophy Elite League will see 32 teams divided into four groups of eight teams each while the Plate League will see six recently-added teams. Top two teams from each of the Elite groups will qualify for the quarterfinals. The Plate League will decide its own champion with the knockouts.
The arrangement will ensure that the quality of Ranji knockouts will not be diluted, as it was for the last few seasons with the policy of including a Plate team in it.
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Since the BCCI switched from zonal league to a two-tier Ranji Trophy league in 2002-03 till the 2007-08 season, the Plate League — then with 12 teams — will witness its own champion. The last Plate champion was Gujarat, which had overcome Railways in a thrilling final at the Brabourne Stadium here in January 2008.
The other two senior men’s tournaments — Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (T20) and Vijay Hazare Trophy (one-day) — will be played in the same format as the last year. It will have the 38 participating teams divided into five groups.
The BCCI has reintroduced the Duleep Trophy and the Irani Cup in its calendar. Duleep Trophy will return to its conventional inter-zonal avatar, with the addition of North East Zone as the sixth team. It will be played on a knockout basis from Sept. 8 to 25 to kick off the season. Irani Cup will see Ranji champion Madhya Pradesh pitted against Rest of India from Oct. 1 to 5.
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With an eye on next year’s inaugural Under-19 women’s World Cup, the BCCI has introduced the women’s Under-19 T20 Trophy and Challenger Trophy tournaments.
The senior women’s season is set to be wrapped just before the ODI World Cup begins in South Africa in February next year.
The tournament dates:
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Ranji Trophy: Dec. 13 to Feb. 20, 2023.
Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy: Oct. 11 to Nov. 5; Vijay Hazare Trophy: Nov. 12 to Dec. 2.
Duleep Trophy: Sept. 8 to 25; Irani Cup: Oct. 1 to 5.
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Senior women’s T20 Trophy: Oct. 11 to Nov. 5; Senior women’s inter-zonal T20 Trophy: Nov. 8 to 15; Senior women’s T20 Challenger Trophy: Nov. 20 to 26; Senior women’s one-day Trophy: Jan. 18 to Feb. 7, 2023; Senior women’s inter-zonal one-day Trophy: Feb. 12 to 21, 2023.
Ranji Trophy Groups: Elite:
League A: Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Baroda, Odisha, and Nagaland.
League B: Mumbai, Saurashtra, Hyderabad, Andhra, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, and Assam.
League C: Karnataka, Kerala, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Services, Rajasthan, Goa, and Pondicherry.
League D: Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Vidarbha, Railways, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Chandigarh, and Tripura.
Plate League: Meghalaya, Manipur, Sikkim, Arunachal, Bihar, and Mizoram.