A meeting of the office-bearers of the BCCI was held on 27 January with a single-point agenda to explore ways to revive the domestic season in India. The meeting, called at a short notice, was also attended by BCCI president Sourav Ganguly and secretary Jay Shah.
BCCI treasurer Arun Dhumal confirmed that they plan to hold the Ranji Trophy 2021/22, which had to be called off earlier this month because of the rising number of Covid-19 cases across the country, in two phases.
‘We are exploring the possibility of staging Ranji Trophy, cases were going up when it was postponed, now they seem to be coming down. The operations team is working on whether we can do the league stage next month and complete the rest of the tournament later (post-IPL)’, Dhumal told PTI after the meeting.
As of now, the plan is to hold the first phase of the Ranji Trophy for a month, starting in February until March, and have the next phase in the June-July window. In between, the IPL 2022 is set to begin on 27 March.
‘The operations team will work out the logistics and factor in the weather, venue availability as well as availability of players. We are very keen to organise the tournament and that is why we are exploring all possibilities to stage it without compromising players' safety’, Dhumal added.
The Ranji Trophy 2021/22, comprising 38 First-class teams, was initially scheduled to begin on 13 January.