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Bumper domestic schedule announced with Ranji Trophy Knockouts at Kolkata and SMAT at Delhi

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The Board of Control for Cricket in India intimated to the state associations about the upcoming domestic season and stated that the premier tournament, Ranji Trophy would be played from January 13 at six centres with one centre allocated for each of the six groups. 

As per reports, the Ranji Trophy centres selected are Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Trivandrum and Chennai. Kolkata has been selected to host the Knockouts which comprise four quarterfinals, two semis and a final slated to begin on March 16. All the knockout games would be five-day affairs. 

The interesting thing about this time’s grouping is that no team gets to play its matches at its home turf until and unless Bengla makes it to the Knockouts. 

Ranji Trophy Groupings

Elite A: Gujarat, Punjab, Himachal, Madhya Pradesh, Services and Assam (in Mumbai)

Elite B: Bengal, Vidarbha, Rajasthan, Kerala, Haryana and Tripura (in Bangalore)

Elite C: Karnataka, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Maharashtra and Uttarakhand (in Kolkata)

Elite D: Saurashtra, Tamil Nadu, Railways, J & K, Jharkhand and Goa (in Ahmedabad)

Elite E: Andhra, Uttar Pradesh, Baroda, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Pondicherry (in Trivandrum)

Plate: Chandigarh, Meghalaya, Bihar, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Sikkim, Arunachal (in Chennai)

The board also informed states that the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, the regional T20 tournament will be played between November 04 and 22 with the Knockouts being hosted in Delhi. 

The six centres chosen for its group stage games are Lucknow, Guwahati, Baroda, Delhi, Haryana and Vijayawada. 

There is no intimation about the formation of groups for the SMAT thus far. Vijay Hazare Trophy, the third premium tournament of the Indian domestic calendar will be held from December 8 to 27. The vines and groups of this tournament are yet to be announced. 

The newly developed Men’s State A one-day competition, remodelled from its previous version of the U-23 ODI tournament will begin from November 20 and will go on until December 10 with the Knockouts played in Bangalore. The group stage matches of this tournament will be played in Rajkot, Pondicherry, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mohali and Guwahati.

Men's Under-25 four-day championship for the CK Nayudu Trophy, another remodelled competition from the Men’s U-23 four day is scheduled to begin from January 28 and will be played till March 31 with the Knockouts being held in Vijaywada.  

The group stage matches of this competition will be held in Nagpur, Hyderabad, Vijaywada, Mohali, Jaipur and Ranchi.

While these are the major competitions, the domestic season kicks off with the Women’s U-19 ODI Championship and Men’s U-19 Vinoo Mankad Trophy. While Rajkot, Nagpur, Vizag, Surat, Jaipur and Bhubaneswar are being considered for the women's competition, Men’s competition is likely to be played in Mohali, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Indore and Ranchi. Surat and Ahmedabad are being considered as the hots for the Knockouts of both women's and men's under-19 respectively. 

The tournaments will start from September 20 and will be played for 29 days to end on October 18. 

The grouping for this tournament is different as only 36 teams take part in it and each group plate or elite will have six teams each with the five plate teams directly making it to the quarterfinal and the second-placed teams from each Elite Group and the winners of the Plate Group playing three pre-quarter-finals to decide the Quarter-Finals lineup. 

Men's Under-19 groupings

Elite A: Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Andhra, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Odisha (in Mohali)

Elite B: MP, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh (in Delhi)

Elite C: Mumbai, Hyderabad, Team Rajasthan, Tripura, Assam and Goa (in Ahmedabad)

Elite D: Haryana, Punjab, Bengal, Baroda, Kerala and Uttarakhand (in Hyderabad)

Elite E: Karnataka, Jharkhand, Vidarbha, Saurashtra, J& K and Pondicherry (in Indore)

Plate: Nagaland, Arunachal, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Sikkim and Manipur (in Ranchi)

Women's Under-19 groupings

Elite A: UP, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Assam, Gujarat and Vidarbha (in Rajkot)

Elite B: Delhi, Goa, Bengal, Pondicherry, Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu (in Nagpur)

Elite C: MP, Kerala, Baroda, Haryana, Chhattisgarh and Bihar (in Vizag)

Elite D: Andhra, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Saurashtra and Chandigarh (in Surat)

Elite E: Punjab, Odisha, Himachal, Karnataka, Tripura and Mizoram (in Jaipur)

Plate: Nagaland, Manipur, Sikkim, Meghalaya, J & K and Arunachal Pradesh (in Bhubaneswar)

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CPL 2021 | BR vs JT: Tallawahs look to square the loss as Jason Holder’s Royals try to build momentum

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Not hosting Women’s IPL is criminal: Reasons why BCCI must start the women's league at the earliest

It has been one week since The hundred ended on August 21. With the Indian Women’s team touring Australia, where some of its players might be staying there post the tour to play Women’s Big Bash League, It is the right time to talk about Women’s IPL. When The Hundred Women’s ended, it established itself as the most-watched and attended Women’s tournament in the history of the game. It not only saw audiences as large as almost 8000 per game, attending women matches, but also showed to the cricketing world that women’s cricket is not only ‘no return investment’, but could be hugely profitable too with viewership in digital and traditional broadcast soaring as high as 1.95 million. More than all this, it gave the voices asking for Women’s IPL for almost a decade now, more strength to demand what is now overdue to the women cricketers of India. Why should only a select few in Indian Women’s cricket get a chance to rub shoulders with the international players while men as young as 17 years are sharing a dressing room with the greats of the game and learning the tricks of the trade? Well, it’s not even about comparison with men, the women standalone deserve a chance to have a stage if not as big as the IPL, then at least at par with what their counterparts are having in other countries. Even a nation as small as New Zealand and Board as devoid of resources as New Zealand Cricket has a Women’s T20 league which is played at the same time as the Men’s t20 tournament. If this does not give enough reasons to start the IP, then let’s look at the following: More exposure to cricketers When Jemimah Rodriguez, the second-highest run-scorer of the inaugural Women’s Hundred said that it was high time we needed a Women’s IPL in an interview to BBC, the main reason behind her request was that more Indian girls like her are also able to get the exposure of playing at a high stage and rub shoulders with professionals. “Once they realise that OK, this is the standard, this is what I need to go out and do, they will want to work harder and work better. That’s very important in India because there is a lot of gap between the domestic and international sides in India,” Rodriguez had said. The BCCI and IPL did a taken service by introducing a three-team women’s tournament which in total had six matches including a final in the tournament. But that tokenism would give nothing. The Indian women’s team has reached two ICC Finals in the last four years and lost both. If the reason is asked, the answer would remain the same, unable to handle the big stage pressure. Why else would the same players go abroad and play in leagues and bat sensationally on the same wickets? By playing a Women’s IPL, they can get familiar with players of other nations and there wouldn’t be any hesitation or pressure taking the field against. Thus exposure matters a lot and we have seen how it works wonders with our men’s team and with women’s players who play abroad in various leagues. The idea of considering a player from the other team as your enemy is also diminished in such circumstances. More money for the board Now the question comes, but why would the BCCI want to make Women’s IPL when it is conjuring expanding the Men’s IPL to 10 teams from the eight currently playing in the league? The answer is moolahs or money as the common people know it. It is no secret that there is no board richer than the BCCI and there isn’t a board wanting more and more than the BCCI either. So when there is money incoming, why would it say no to it? Imagine the Women’s IPL running at the same time as men’s IPL. With matches of both the men’s and women’s teams of two franchises taking place at the same time. The broadcasters don’t have to apply more resources or manpower for the game as they would have already done it for the Men’s game anyway. If on the price of the same ticket people come to watch both the games, there would definitely be surety of more audiences reaching hours before so that they could catch more cricket. The kind of fan following women cricketers have gathered through their social media, there is no doubt that people will come in large numbers to watch the match, and more so because they don’t have to pay any extra and can catch the men’s game hassle-free as well if they grab their seats early. It would increase the fees of broadcasting contract so BCCI gets more money, there would definitely be sponsors for the Women’s game, which would be different from the men’s game as product placement for different kinds of audiences would attract different products trying to get an ad slot in the match, hence more money for broadcasters as well. Also, imagine Smriti Mandhan in the same ad as Virat Kohli or Rohit Sharma, how many people would not watch it? Hardly any right? Why wouldn’t franchise want to cash on it and bring more sponsors for their team, again with different kinds of product placements would attract more sponsors? Thus, it is a win-win situation for everybody. Free PR opportunity for franchises With every season of IPL, there is some kind 0f controversy or the other. Sometimes it’s the draughts in Maharashtra, at other times the equal pay for women cricketers and at others totally unrelated things. First of all, by organising the IPL, the BCCI could for at least the next 5-10 years manage to bury the equal pay question. It is not an ideal situation for society, but for women’s cricket, having an IPL is a priority that if achieved, would eventually lead to an equal pay argument. In fact, the more audiences attend women IPL games, the more sponsors get attracted to the sport, the stronger the argument for equal pay would become, the equal pay issue cannot be considered in isolation. Secondly, women players in press conferences with their male counterparts speaking on the same issues is sure to put more weight on the BCCI’s side of the argument. Thus BCCI would again be in a win-win situation and the same arguments can be given for the franchise. In fact, franchise owners could involve their women players in more of their PR and philanthropic activities than they could men players. New audiences for sponsors and broadcasters If anything that the recent Olympics and Indian women’s team’s matches has shown, it shows that people in India are supporting women sports right now more than ever before. Thus, it is the right time for BCCI and broadcasters to cash in and give the newer sports audience something more to watch. With Women’s cricket getting into Commonwealth Games next year having already entered the Asian Games arena, it might also pave the way for cricket’s Olympic dreams. In such a situation, the more women cricket is shown on TV or in Stadiums with the right kind of marketing, the more people would want to be exposed to it. So while IPL took cricket to every household via TV and reached to a certain extent even to the women audiences by occupying their daily soap opera timing, women’s IPL could infiltrate the digital screens of the Zen Z. Increased women participation in sports In the last two Olympics, Indian women have won five medals which is more the men’s. Even non-medal winning women like the India Women’s Hockey team, Archer Deepika Kumari and Golfer Aditi Ashok and Boxer Mary Kom were celebrated by the nation much more than could have been expected. In such times, if the women players of the most popular sport in the second-most populous country in the world are denied a world level league in that sport, then it could be nothing less than criminal. To end, Bob Dylan’s lyrics could perfectly summarise what the larger audience in India wants to convey to BCCI which considers investing in Women’s IPL a losing cause, “For the loser now..Will be later to win..For the times they are a-changin”