Ranji Trophy 2021-22: BCCI opens up on two-phased plan for the tournament

The 2021/22 season of the Ranji Trophy was originally scheduled to kick off from January 13 before the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on January 4 had announced to postpone it indefinitely due to a surge in the COVID-19 cases in the country. The cricket board had taken this decision taking into consideration the safety of all the players, support staff, match officials, and the other participants involved, and apart from Ranji Trophy, the national cricket board had also postponed other domestic tournaments- Col CK Nayudu Trophy and Senior Women’s T20 League.

Now, the BCCI has officially come up with a two-phased plan for this year’s prestigious domestic cricket tournament as it makes its comeback after a year-long hiatus. The competition will be played between February 10 and June 26 across nine venues. The league stage will be the first leg of the tournament comprising  38 teams and 57 matches which are scheduled to be played from February 10 to March 15.

Here’s all you need to know about the 2021-2022 Ranji Trophy

The second and final leg will be the knockout phase which will be held after the IPL 2022 comprising seven games from May 30 to June 26. As per the BCCI’s two-phased plan for the 2022 Ranji Trophy, as reported by ESPN Cricinfo, the tournament will consist of 64 games and all the participating teams will be divided into nine groups. While eight of them will feature in the Elite group, the remaining one will be a part of the Plate group. There will be four teams in the Elite group and six of them in Plate.

The Plate teams just need to play against three teams from their group whereas, the Elite teams will have to face all the sides in their group. The pre-quarterfinal reportedly will be played in the first phase of the tournament itself ahead of the commencement of the IPL 2022 on March 27.

All the Plate matches will be hosted in Kolkata whereas, the Elite games will be held in Rajkot, Cuttack, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Trivandrum, Delhi, Haryana, and Guwahati respectively. Saurashtra are the defending champions having won the previous edition in the 2019/20 season. The pandemic had also forced the cancellation of the 2020/21 season. This was the first time in the history of the traditional tournament that it had to be canceled ever since its inception.