The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) are thinking of transforming the entire format of the Ranji Trophy tournament. The Covid situation in India again went on peak due to the omicron variant that delayed the Ranji Trophy supposed to take place in February. BCCI Secretary Jay Shah verified that Ranji Trophy’s format is going to change due to this reason and will be held in two phases in 2022. In the new format, the teams will play at neutral venues but some matches can take place on home grounds.
BCCI tweaks Ranji Trophy’s Format due to Covid, the most probable date is February 13th.
As per reports, the tournaments are going to commence on February 13 and 17. The BCCI has led a lot of plants to schedule the Ranji Trophy 2022. The tournament will be held in two phases for this edition.
The Plans
The tournament can begin at nine different centres with two groups namely the Elite and Plate teams. The finalists from the nine groupings will be forming a Super League. Here, each team will play eight games. The least performing teams would have to end their campaign after just three matches.
In an alternative plan, the top two states will get a maximum of seven games with three for the 16 sides at the other extreme. Eight groups are included in the Elite Division and six teams are merged in one Plate division.
Originally, there were 30 Elite and 8 Plate teams. In the latest plan, two teams are to be subtracted from the Plate Division, namely Chandigarh and Bihar which leads to the Elite Division having 32 teams.
Format of the tournament
The 32 Elite teams would be divided into eight groups of four sides and six teams in the Plate Group. The best team from each Elite group will progress to the next stage which could be a Super League among the eight toppers, who would be further divided into two clusters, four on each side.
Two sides from each cluster would be qualifying for the semifinals and finals in the Super League post-playing three league matches each in their respective groups in the second stage.
BCCI is also planning to have two Elite sides from a group that qualifies for the top 16 which is the pre-quarterfinals stage. From here, the final knockouts would actually begin. Unfortunately, the Plate teams won’t have a place to acquire this title. They will be having five league games and then get promoted to the Elite Division for two teams in 2023.
Read more: Ambati Rayudu’s incredible IPL numbers tell a big story
