CoA, BCCI committees on collision course over domestic schedule

Bengaluru. July 19: The fight between the Supreme Court appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) and sections of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) reached another flash point when technical and tours/fixtures committees took offence to the domestic schedule released on Wednesday with the CoA approval.

The revamped schedule of Ranji Trophy included nine new teams - Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Puducherry, Sikkim, Uttarakhand - expanding the Ranji Trophy to 37 teams from the present 27.

It's understood that while the technical committee chief Sourav Ganguly has no issues in new teams coming into the fold, the former Indian skipper was miffed that the decision was taken without taking him into confidence.

NEW DOMESTIC SCHEUDLE RELEASED

The Ranji Trophy tournament will have nine teams each in Elite Group A and B and 10 teams in the Elite Group C. The nine new teams will be placed in the Plate group category.

The top team that qualifies for quarterfinals from the Plate group will be promoted to Elite Group C in the next season. The top two teams that qualify for the quarterfinals from Elite Group C will be promoted to Elite Group A and B in the next season.

However, Ganguly understood to have expressed his concerns that while more than 150 matches will be played in the league phase, the focus on new teams playing in the Plate Group could only be academical. Ganguly has also conveyed that the newly approved format differs from what was discussed in the Technical Committee meeting in Kolkata sometime back.

"While new teams are always welcome to the Ranji Trophy tent, there are enough reasons to suspect that the decision makers did not consider the importance for giving 'small' teams the chance to prepare for Ranji Trophy, where the level of competition will be much higher than these teams ever experienced.

"Also, we have to heed to a person like Sourav Ganguly who has immense knowledge of cricket and matters related to the sport. If he and other members of the Technical Committee have put forward some suggestions then they should be duly considered before reaching any conclusion," a BCCI official told MyKhel.