2017-18 Ranji Trophy: Six north east states request BCCI for inclusion as a combined team

What's the story?

With just over a month to go for the start of the 2017-18 Ranji Trophy season, six north eastern states will be appealing to the Committee of Administrators (CoA) to allow them to play as a combined unit in India's premier first-class tournament.

Naba Bhattacharya, the convenor of the North East State Cricket Association (NESCA), confirmed that their representatives are meeting the CoA in Delhi on September 8.

“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. 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. 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,” Naba said.

In case you didn't know...

The Ranji Trophy, that has been India's premier cricket tournament for over 80 years, didn't have a single representative from the north east region until Tripura became the first team that part of the country to take part in the tournament in the 1985-86 season and was followed by Assam in the 2002-03 season.

Details

As per the Lodha committee recommendations, six teams from the north east are supposed to become full members of the BCCI. The six states are Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland and Mizoram.

The BCCI has already announced the Ranji Trophy groups for the upcoming season and that does not feature the north east team. Naba pointed out that there is enough time left for the season to get underway and urged the BCCI to make it a 30-team tournament by including Bihar and north east.

If all the six states form a team and get the nod to play in the Ranji Trophy representing north east, their matches will be hosted by Sovima Cricket Stadium in Dimapur, Nagaland.

What's next?

As of now, this season's tournament will start on October 6 and will run till January 2. The league stage, consisting of 28 teams split into four groups, will end in the last week of November and the quarterfinals will be played from December 7.

The semi-finals will start on December 17 while the final starts on December 29. The league matches will be a four-day encounter while the knockouts will be a five-day affair.

Author's Take

It will be great if BCCI approves the participation of the north east team in the Ranji Trophy as it will attract a lot of audiences and budding cricketers to take up the sport seriously.

At the same time, the board has already announced the groups for this year's tournament and it will be difficult for them to include two new teams in the current format.