Revamping Ranji Trophy Cricket

In countries like Australia, England and South Africa, the competitive first-class cricket structure is the most important reason why these teams have been enjoying a lot of success in all forms of the game off-late. Their domestic competitions throw up a lot of competent reserve players, who can be given Test or One-day International caps whenever a player is injured or rested (or in some cases, dropped for disciplinary reasons). For example, when the legendary Australian leg-spinner Shane Warne was serving a one-year ban for testing positive for a banned substance in a dope test conducted during the World Cup in 2003, he was immediately replaced by another young and talented player in the side, because Australian domestic cricket has plenty of such prospects who are ready and eagerly waiting to grab every opportunity to prove themselves.

Apart from the usual domestic competitions like the County Championship in England and the ones featuring the Australian state sides and the South African provinces, these countries have also started becoming a lot more innovative with their domestic one-day cricket. They have introduced a competition in which their domestic teams are divided into two divisions. They play all the teams in their group to qualify for the latter stages of the tournament. The top team in the second division is promoted to the first division based on its performance and the bottom team in the first division is relegated to the second division. This is an incentive for all the counties, states or provinces to maintain their good performance of the previous season and constantly try to improve. The players then work harder and constantly try to get better, not only in their respective departments of specialisation (that is, the batsmen try to score runs more consistently, the fast bowlers work harder to bowl faster and take more wickets and the spin bowlers also work harder to add to their tally of wickets and add more variety to their armoury of deliveries), but the standards of fielding and fitness levels of these players also improve considerably.

The Twenty20 version of cricket has revolutionised the way one-day cricket is played in some countries, including the ones mentioned above. It is an innovative concept in which the matches are played over just three hours instead of the whole day or over a number of days. The players have to score as many runs as they can in the allotted twenty overs. There are new rules for fielding restrictions as well in this new format. It was, ironically, started in England (the birthplace of the sport as a whole), which, for a long time, was considered to be a pretty traditional cricketing nation (however, that impression is, slowly but surely, changing now.) Since then, it has caught on in Australia, South Africa and Pakistan. Twenty20 cricket tournaments are expected to be organised in other countries as well over a period of time. It is a great chance for players who are known to score runs quickly and heavily, like New Zealand all-rounder Chris Cairns, Australian wicket-keeper/batsman Adam Gilchrist, Australia's Matthew Hayden, Indian opener Virender Sehwag, Pakistani all-rounder Shahid Afridi and former Sri Lankan captain Sanath Jayasuriya, to name a few, to match wits with bowlers, many of whom are normally mean and economical in their bowling analysis, such as ace Sri Lankan off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan, Australian pace spearheads Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee and Jason Gillespie, South African fast bowlers Shaun Pollock and Makhaya Ntini, Sri Lanka's Chaminda Vaas, Indian left-armers Zaheer Khan and Irfan Pathan and Pakistani pacers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammed Sami, among others. The Twenty20 format would prove to be a great boost to the careers of all-rounders because it is basically a format in which the team needs players who can adapt quickly, score, heavily and then try to bowl the opposition out as quickly as possible. The Twenty20 Cup also attracts a lot of eyeballs on television and is a lucrative option for sponsors.

Coming back to the main point of this topic, I am of the opinion that Indian domestic cricket needs a serious revamp, and the changes have to be drastic, not makeshift ones. As a cricket fan, I would any dad prefer to watch an English County Championship match or a Twenty20 Cup match on television or view the scoreboard online rather than follow my own city (Mumbai) or state (Maharashtra) team's performance in India's premier domestic cricket competition, namely the Ranji Trophy. In fact, it is not surprising that very few people watch the Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy and Irani Trophy matches. Firstly, the tickets to a match played at Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium or at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata are very expensive and beyond the reach of the common Indian cricket fan. Secondly, most of these matches are not telecast on Doordarshan, unlike the matches that are played by the county sides in England, which are shown every season on ESPN-Star Sports.

Our weak domestic structure is also clearly divided on elitist lines, with the traditional cricketing powerhouses such as Mumbai, Delhi, Karnataka, Hyderabad, Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Railways, etc. in the Elite Group, and the weaker teams in the Plate Group. Within these two groups also, there is a distinction that seems pretty unfair. The Elite 'A' and Elite 'B' groups have teams that have Indian internationals in their ranks (whenever they play domestic cricket) and teams that have players who have either played a few international matches or are on the verge of making it to the senior Indian squad. Even though both the Plate 'A' group and the Plate 'B' group have weak teams and do not have many star players to boast of, the Plate 'A' group represents the stronger teams amongst the minnows of Indian domestic cricket. Money is possibly the primary factor that influences this distinction, considering that the Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) and its former president, Jagmohan Dalmiya are the richest cricket administrators in the world.

These are my suggestions to revamp the Ranji Trophy tournament in India:

India should introduce Twenty20 Cup cricket in one of its forthcoming domestic seasons, and telecast the matches live on the sports channels, as they are done live from England on ESPN-Star Sports when the county teams are playing. This will not only attract more eyeballs on television, but also the Indian team's star players might be interested in playing for their state sides, just like in England, where their cricketers play domestic cricket, turning out for their counties despite a busy international schedule.

An experimental tournament must be organised like the one conducted by the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) earlier this year. The Premier Hockey League (PHL) was quite successful in attracting a lot of sponsors and viewership increased as well. The hockey administrators in the country were thus able to revive the country's (waning)interest in its official national sport by organising the PHL tournament. India's cricketers must be divided into five zonal teams, namely the Central Zone, the East Zone, the North Zone, the South Zone and the West Zone. They should be given interesting names and coloured clothing, limited overs, white balls, substitutions, etc. must be allowed. The matches should be played under floodlights. The captain of each of the five zonal teams should be a member of Team India, viz Mohammed Kaif (Central Zone), Sourav Ganguly (East Zone), Virender Sehwag (North Zone), Rahul Dravid (South Zone) and Sachin Tendulkar (West Zone).

The coaches must be appointed either from these zones or ex-cricketers should be in charge of all the five teams. The current India coach, Greg Chappell (the former Australian batsman and captain), should lso be taken into confidence as well.

It would also be a good idea to invite players from Bangaldesh, Kenya and Zimbabwe and 'A' team players from other countries to play in this tournament. It would also give them a lot of international exposure, as the Indian conditions are among the toughest conditions to adapt to for a touring party from another country.

I would like India's cricket authorities to take up this matter very strongly, as our cricket structure needs a booster shot for it to improve and our players to be more equipped to go on tours abroad. The results of Team India off late have been pretty inconsistent, and a core group of sorts has emerged in the Indian team, with the same twenty names with a few minor changes making it to every list of probables announced by the board.