North-Eastern states request for entry as combined team in Ranji Trophy

Committee of Administrators (CoA) had made a recommendation to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to allow the six states from North-Eastern (NE) India to have a full member status in the BCCI. The six states Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, and Sikkim are requesting the BCCI to allow them to play as a combined unit. Naba Bhattacharya, the convenor of the NE state cricket association informed that their representatives are meeting CoA on September 8.

Bhattacharya said that they were surprised that the BCCI chalked up the Ranji Trophy schedule and ignored the NE states in spite of orders from the Lodha committee.

“We were really surprised to find that BCCI has chalked up the Ranji schedule and North Eastern states have once again been ignored despite Lodha Committee’s ‘one-state one-vote’ diktat. We are not saying that we want to play as individual states. But there should be a start somewhere,” Bhattacharya told PTI today.

He further added that six teams can make a decent combined team with a good pool of players to pick from. “The NE cricket association representatives will be meeting the CoA and we will propose that a combined team be fielded this year. We have good enough players in each state to have a pool of 20 players from which we can select the NE team.”

Demands to make Ranji Trophy a 30-team affair

BCCI made the schedule of Ranji Trophy with 28 participating teams. It would be difficult to make changes to the competition at this stage, but a Meghalaya official has a different view on the situation. The official argued that there is still a month to go for the tournament and BCCI should think in the direction to include a NE team along with Bihar to make it a 30-team affair.

Meghalaya CA official said: “There is still a month left. If they can have 28 teams, why can’t they include us and Bihar and make it a 30-team affair and make changes accordingly.”