"We need to reduce the number of teams in our doemstic competitions. Look at the format in Australia, there they have only seven or eight teams playing at the first class level and the compettion is brutal,"
says Anil Kumble.
Inherently, a team cannot progress unless every constituent has the same objective. Gujarat, or Maharashtra, having three teams does not help India because it dilutes the stream in which young talent bathes. Not even Barbados in its prime could have possessed 45 first class standard cricketers in a year. But three teams from a state means three votes, three grants.
writes Harsha Bhogle.
Fair points and ones that deserve some thought.
So here is a thought. Listed below are all the teams that participate in the Ranji Trophy. Which ones do you propose should go?
* Assam
* Goa
* Himachal Pradesh
* Jammu & Kahmir
* Jharkhand
* Kerala
* Madhya Pradesh
* Orissa
* Railways
* Services
* Tripura
* Vidarbha
* Andhra
* Baroda
* Bengal
* Delhi
* Gujarat
* Haryana
* Hyderabad
* Karnataka
* Maharashtra
* Mumbai
* Punjab
* Rajasthan
* Saurashtra
* Tamil Nadu
* Uttar Pradesh
Update: - Apologies all.. The question above should have read "Which ones do you propose should go and how to go about with this?"
Monday, April 02, 2007
Streamlined Ranji
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11 comments:
Right off the bat, some teams that can be dissolved/asimilated:
Hyderabad - assimilated into Andhra
Saurashtra and Baroda - assimilated into Gujarat
Mumbai, Maharashtra, Vidarbha, and Goa - assimilated into Maharashtra/Goa combine?
Some of the Eastern states can be consolidated too: Tripura and Assam into one team?
Let's get rid of Railways and Services.
That leaves us with 20 teams (?). We need to dissovle/assimilate another 10.
Thanks Mephistopheles.
How about trying to make it like football in the UK .. a premiership based on last years results - and the rest of them form the league - bottom 3 or 4 get dropped from the premiership each year and the top 3-4 from the league make it through.
Sfx,
We already have a similar system in place with the Super League and the Plate league. And I believe there are going to be further modifications to the Ranji and Duleep Trophy formats if the BCCI can get arouns to discussing those. :)
Why not play with 5 zones and one team as NCA team of emerging playing?
We can then adopt the Aussie format of Shield cricket.So how a player of India will be ready? By playing at these levels:
clubs--Ranji--Duleep--test!
Chandan,
How is that different from the current setup?
It'll be different in the sense that we'll make Duleep trophy as our premier tournament, play it on a round-robin basis so that each zone has to play with the other and then have the final.
Ranji will be played only at zonal level like in one-dayers. Then after that best of 15 players will be chosen from each zone to represent it.
We'll have just 90 players competing in the tournament compared to almost 500 that we have at Ranji Level. This will be more competitive. We'll choose maximum of 6 venues for the matches and have those pitches as good as test ones and vary in character like having Mohali, Chennai, Mumbai, Nagpur (a pitch that we had in 2004 vs Aussies),Kolkata and Bangalore.
Few former players have also given this idea:
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20070409&fname=Cricket&sid=1&pn=1
"The numbers playing first-class cricket is huge...it should be designed to throw up players with qualities needed in international cricket. It’s time we looked at an improved Duleep Trophy as the only first-class tournament. All players must compete in this event," Bedi says.
makes sense Chandan.. Ranji as a feeder for Duleep as feeder for Test cricket..
Ok. So tell me has anyone given a comprehensive plan for the improved structure of domestic cricket? I'm told that many blogs have discussed it. But since I read only Prem, yours and Kartikeya's blog, I don't quite know.
Whose plan do YOU think makes the best sense? If mine does, then I can provide few more articles that I saved in past. And I didn't like BCCI's idea of adopting an EPL like structure.
Hope to listen from you.
Chandan,
Besides Kartikeya on his blog, nothing comprehensive.. The initial premise of my question was since there is so much talk of reducing the number of teams in the Ranji competition, which are the teams to be eliminated and how to go about with this . The "how" was particularly important ( to me) because of the logistics involved in the whole merger.
That said, I would really love to see hear you expand on the club-ranji-duleep-test concept, specifically how you envision the structure of these tourneys so that the participating cricketers get as many games to showcase thier talents and get visibility from the poers that matter.
Cheers
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