The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will reportedly reintroduce the Duleep Trophy and Irani Cup in the domestic calendar from this year and a decision in this regard was taken at the Board’s Apex Council meeting, held in Mumbai on Thursday.
Duleep Trophy, which was last held three years ago in 2019, will return in the format of the zonal system and will be held between September 8 and 25. The tournament will witness a total of five knockout games.
On the other hand, Irani Cup, the traditional five-day one-off match held between the Ranji Trophy champions and the Rest of India, which hasn’t been held since the the last two years due to the pandemic, will be staged between October 1 and 5. The venue of the match however, hasn’t been decided yet.
As per a report in Cricbuzz, the defending Ranji champions — Madhya Pradesh will be one of the teams competing in the Irani Trophy.
Among other key decisions taken at the meeting was finalisation of the fixtures for the 2022-23 season with main focus on the Ranji Trophy, which will start on December 13.
The league stage of the premier domestic competition will run till January 28 and the knockouts will be from February 1 to 28. The BCCI has kept three options for the first-class tournament and it will be spread over a period of over four months, 126 days to be precise.
The other domestic tournaments to be conducted this year are Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (T20) – from October 11 to November 22, Vijay Hazare Trophy (One Day) – from November 12 to December 2, Men’s U25 One Day competition – from November 20 to December 10, Col CK Nayudu Trophy (multi-day) – from January 1 to March 23, Vinoo Mankad Trophy (one-day) – from October 7 to 23, Cooch Behar Trophy (multi-day) – from November 5 to January 3 and Vijay Merchant Trophy U16 (multi-day) – from December 1 to January 20.
Meanwhile, the senior women’s T20 Trophy will be from October 11 to November 5, senior women’s Inter Zonal T20 – from November 8 to 15, senior women T20 Challenger Trophy – from November 20 to 26, senior women’s One-Day Trophy – from January 18 to February 7, senior women’s Inter Zonal One-Day – from February 12 to 21, women’s U23 T20 Trophy – from February 3 to 23, women’s U23 One-Day Trophy – from February 26 to March 18, women’s U19 T20 Trophy – from October 1 to 17, women’s U19 T20 Challenger Trophy – from November 1 to 7, women’s U19 One-Day Trophy – from December 7 to 23 and women’s U-16 One-Day Trophy – from December 26 to January 3.