Vijay Hazare Trophy is a limited overs domestic competition that involves different state teams from India to fight against each other for the title. The tournament is administered by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) only and is played among 37 teams.
The first edition of the Vijay Hazare Trophy was played back in 1993-94 but no overall winner was used to be named as the teams just played against counterparts without any final being played.
In 2002-03, the first finals was played where Tamil Nadu emerged as the winner in the penultimate match against Punjab.
The 2019 Vijay Hazare Trophy will be its 18th edition which is scheduled to be played from September 24 to October 25, 2019. The tournament will retain the same format as the previous edition of the
competition.
The tournament will have four groups, with nine teams each in Groups A, B and ten teams in Group C and the Plate Group.
The top two teams from Group C and the top team in the Plate Group will progress to the quarter-finals of the tournament, along with five teams from Group A and B
Unmukt Chand has been appointed as Uttarakhand's captain, this might hand out to be a blessing in disguise for the former India U-19 captain to perform well and fall in the eyes of the National Selectors.
The Indian National players like Shikhar Dhawan, Rishabh Pant and Navdeep Saini will be representing Delhi, making it a formidable line up to face against.
Mumbai have picked up Atharva Ankolekar the upcoming U-19 star who recently performed well in SriLanka.
Defending Champions Mumbai will be relying on Suryakumar Yadav, Siddhesh Lad and Dhawal Kulkarni to continue the momentum in absence of star players Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane, who will be on national duty this time.
Also see - Vijay Hazare schedule 2019
The sides of Tamil Nadu and Delhi are going into the tournament as potential favorites. Delhi has big names like Dhawan, Pant and Saini. Tamil Nadu on the other hand have roped in the best performing players from the recently concluded Tamil Nadu Premier League(TNPL), so it is going to be interesting to see how players perform under pressure.
After a continuous successful domestic circuit, all eyes will be on Dhruv Shorey (Delhi), Mohammed Siraj (Hyderabad) and Prasidh Krishna (Karnataka). Dinesh Karthik will be leading a strong Tamil Nadu line up comprising of the all rounders, Washington Sundar and Vijay Shankar.
