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Ranji Trophy crisis: Ravi Shastri urges BCCI to conduct the domestic tournament at any cost

Former India head coach Ravi Shastri said the Ranji Trophy is the backbone of Indian cricket and the premier domestic red-ball tournament should not be ignored.

Ravi Shastri

New Delhi, January 28: Former India head coach Ravi Shastri on Friday (January 28) said the Ranji Trophy is the backbone of Indian cricket and the premier domestic red-ball tournament should not be ignored.

"The Ranji Trophy is the backbone of Indian cricket. The moment you start ignoring it, our cricket will be SPINELESS," tweeted Shastri.

On January 4, the BCCI had postponed the Ranji Trophy due to rising COVID19 cases in the country.

The Ranji Trophy and Col CK Nayudu Trophy were scheduled to begin in January this year. Last season as well, Ranji Trophy was not held due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Indian Premier League (IPL 2022) will get underway in March end and the tournament will get over in May, BCCI secretary Jay Shah had earlier confirmed.

So, it remains to be seen how the board goes about staging the Ranji Trophy this season or will it be postponed again.

BCCI’s take

BCCI treasurer Arun Dhumal on Thursday said that the board intends to hold the Ranji Trophy in "two phases" after they were forced to postpone the premier first-class competition due to rising cases of COVID-19 in the country.

The Ranji Trophy comprising 38-first-class teams was scheduled to start on January 13 but was postponed indefinitely due to the third wave of COVID-19.

With the BCCI planning to start the IPL from March 27, it is practically impossible to hold the tournament in one go but after requests from many state units, the brass held a meeting to discuss the way forward.

"We are exploring the possibility of staging Ranji Trophy, cases were going up when it was postponed, now they seem to be coming down.

“The operations team is working on whether we can do the league stage next month and complete the rest of the tournament later (post IPL)," Dhumal told PTI after the meeting.

The meeting was also attended by BCCI president Sourav Ganguly and secretary Jay Shah. As of now, the plan is to hold the league phase for a month, starting in February till March and then have the next phase in June-July, when the monsoon starts in a lot of parts of India with peak summer in some other parts.

Story first published: Friday, January 28, 2022, 12:15 [IST]
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