Vijay Hazare Trophy 2021 announced, starts on February 20 and final to be played on March 14

After successfully hosting the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) have scheduled to conduct the Vijay Hazare Trophy. The tournament will be starting on February 20 and the group stages will be conducted until March 1. After a short break for a week, the knockout stages will be played from March 8. The semi-finals and the final will be played on March 11 and 14 respectively. 

This will be the first season in a long time that Ranji Trophy won’t be played. The board had stated that having a tournament of that large scale won’t be possible for them during these times. Hence, they decided to go with the premier 50 overs competition. The Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 trophy kicked off the domestic season of Indian cricket. The tournament concluded on 31st January. 

BCCI have apparently sent a proper circular to all the state associations, informing all the details about the 50-over competition. It was stated that the group stages of the tournament will be played between February 20 and March 1. After that, a series of COVID-19 tests will be conducted before the knockout stage of the tournament. 

Six venues selected for the Vijay Hazare Trophy

The final will be played on March 14. The venue of the final has not been decided yet. The knockout stages of the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament was played at the Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad. Six venues were selected for the Vijay Hazare Trophy, Surat, Indore, Bangalore, Jaipur, and Kolkata and a venue in Tamil Nadu.

“The teams are required to assemble in their respective host cities on February 13 and will be needed to undergo Covid-19 testing procedure and Quarantine in accordance with the State regulatory authorities and the BCCI’s SOPs,” said the BCCI mail to the state units, which was reported by Cricbuzz, said on Sunday evening.

Here are the groups of the tournament

Elite A (Surat): Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Tripura, Hyderabad, Baroda, and Goa

Elite B (Indore): Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Jharkhand, MP, Vidarbha, and AP

Elite C (Bangalore): Karnataka, UP, Kerala, Odisha, Railways, and Bihar

Elite D (Jaipur): Delhi, Mumbai, Maharashtra, HP, Rajasthan, and Pondicherry

Elite E (Kolkata): Bengal, Services, J&K, Saurashtra, Haryana, and Chandigarh

Plate (Tamil Nadu, city TBC): Uttarakhand, Nagaland, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, and Sikkim