The start of the official 2022–23 Indian domestic season will be signalled by the famous Duleep Trophy, which will be played in a zonal format, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced on Monday. The BCCI also announced the resumption of the Irani Cup, which would feature around 1,500 matches from the first week of September 2022 to the middle of March 2023.
The Duleep Trophy will be played between six zones (North, South, Central, West, East, and Northeast) on a knockout basis from September 8 to September 25.
The Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and the Vijay Hazare Trophy will come after the two multi-day competitions. 38 teams will compete in the two white-ball events, divided into three groups of 8 teams and two groups of 7 teams, according to an official release from the BCCI.
The current Ranji Trophy champions of a season play a Rest of India team in the Irani Cup, which is scheduled to take place from October 1 to 5. Five zones used to compete for the Duleep Trophy in a knockout style.
But once the round-robin stage drew to a close, it changed to a three-team competition, with the top two teams moving on to the championship match.
Irani Cup was last played in the 2018–19 season, whereas Duleep Trophy was last played in the 2019–20 season. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ranji Trophy was postponed for the first time in the 2020–21 season. A condensed version of the event was played in the 2021–22 season.
However, following the completion of the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy (October 11 to November 5) and the Vijay Hazare Trophy on December 13, it will return to its regular format for the 2022–23 season (November 12 to December 2).
There will be two categories in the Ranji Trophy, India's top domestic competition: Elite and Plate. The Elite Group will have 32 teams and be divided into 4 groups of 8 teams, with each team playing 7 games throughout the league stage. Each of the top two teams from the four groups will advance directly to the quarterfinals.
"The Plate Group will have six teams and fifteen league games. The top four teams will advance directly to the semifinals, while the bottom two teams will compete for fifth and sixth place. League games for both the Elite Group and Plate Group will begin on December 13th, with the Elite Group's season ending on February 20th and the Plate League's on January 29th "outlined the BCCI.
The Senior Women's Inter-Zonal T20 and T20 Challenger will come next. The Senior Women's One-Day Trophy and the inter-zonal One-Day will then switch to the 50-over format. This season marks the return of the Senior Women's Inter-Zonal T20 and One-Day competitions.
The 50-over Under-16 women's tournament has also been reinstated by the BCCI and will take place for the first time since 2006.
According to the BCCI, "the competition will provide the girls a taste of competitive cricket at a young age and help them make an easier transition to the U-19 level."
The ICC U19 Women's T20 World Cup will also be held in South Africa in January 2023, hence the dates for the women's U19 T20 Trophy and women's U19 T20 Challenger have been set for October 1 to November 7.