It’s official: Ranji Trophy to begin on Feb 10

The first phase of Ranji Trophy will take place from February 10-March 15 and “post IPL” phase from May 30- June 26, BCCI secretary Jay Shah informed state units on Thursday.

Shah’s letter made it clear that it is set to be one of the shortest first-class seasons with most teams getting to play only three matches which effectively means that increased match fees will not have an impact on most of the teams that will be ousted at the group league stage.

The tournament will have 64 games in 62 days with the first phase comprising 57 matches and the second stage having seven knock-out games which comprises four quarter-finals, two semi-finals and the final.

The elite group matches will be played in Rajkot, Cuttack, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Trivandrum, Delhi, Haryana and Guwahati. Plate league matches will be held in Kolkata.

Each team from elite group, barring one, will qualify for the quarterfinals. The lowest ranked qualified team from elite group will play plate toppers in the sole pre-quarterfinal. (Agencies)

Hopefully, Rahane, Pujara will go back to Ranji and score runs: Ganguly
BCCI president Sourav Ganguly has said Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara, who have faced criticism over their recent performances, can get their form back in the Ranji Trophy. “Hopefully, they will go back to Ranji and score a lot of runs...They have played the tournament in the past [also] when they were only playing Test cricket,” Ganguly stated.

Groupings
Elite A (Rajkot): Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Meghalaya
Elite B (Cuttack): Bengal, Baroda, Hyderabad, Chandigarh
Elite C (Chennai): Karnataka, Railways, Jammu and Kashmir, Pondicherry
Elite D (Ahmedabad): Saurashtra, Mumbai, Odisha, Goa
Elite E (Thiruvananthapuram): Andhra, Rajasthan, Services, Uttarakhand
Elite F (Delhi): Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Tripura
Elite G (Rohtak, Gurugram): Vidarbha, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Assam
Elite H (Guwahati): Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh
Plate (Kolkata): Bihar, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh