BCCI gives Duleep Trophy a miss for 2017-18 domestic season

The Duleep Trophy has been left out by the BCCI from its domestic calendar for the upcoming season. The 56-year-old tournament was struggling to remain associated with the BCCI for the past two years and have now finally been eliminated from the schedule. BCCI’s acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary approved the schedule on Friday, 18th of August which stated that the season will start with the Ranji Trophy on 6th October and will end with the Deodhar Trophy on March 18, 2018. There will be a gap of two weeks between the two tournaments.

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On July 31st, Amitabh Choudhary stated that the Duleep Trophy will be played in the pink ball following the same format as last year. However, the inter-zonal format of the tournament was changed to that of India Blue, India Green and India Red last season.

The development came as a surprise for the technical committee that is responsible for making the domestic cricket structure. A member of the technical committee spoke to TOI on Friday and said “There must be some confusion. It was understood that the tournament will go ahead. Strange that the tournament and fixtures committee has overlooked it,”. “This needs to be revisited before the schedule is released,” he added.

The board has been facing problems to fit in the tournament on the schedule for some time now and the tournament was somehow squeezed into the calendar last year. The tournament was played in Greater Noida during the monsoon.

New Zealand ‘A’ will also be touring India for a short series in the middle of September.  “As of now, the series is slated to start on September 19. We are in the last round of clearing the formalities with the government,” a top BCCI official told TOI.

“India will be playing ODIs against Australia in September-October after the tour of Sri Lanka, and with the India A series on as well, top 30-32 players will be unavailable around that time,” the official concluded.