Ranji Trophy: BCCI issues guidelines; pre-quarterfinal to be five-day affair
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has issued 'staging guidelines' for all host cricket associations to be followed for the successful conduct of the Ranji Trophy. The first round of the Ranji Trophy is scheduled to commence on February 17.
The BCCI guidelines include a mandatory five-day quarantine for all teams, capping the squad size, including support staff, to 30 members and a five-day pre-quarterfinal stage that includes a mandatory four-day quarantine period.
The 38-team event will be held in nine cities - Rajkot, Cuttack, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Delhi, Haryana, Guwahati and Kolkata - and will resume after a two-year break due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The guidelines add that each squad can have a maximum of 30 members, including a minimum of 20 players, with the number of support staff capped at 10. The guidelines state that 20 players will be eligible for match fees, with the playing XI eligible for 100 percent while the remaining nine players are entitled to 50 percent of the match fee.
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Each team can also have two COVID reserves in their setup for every match.
The BCCI guidelines have asked all the teams to assemble at the respective venues on February 10. The teams will then undergo a mandatory five-day quarantine with RT-PCR tests conducted on Day Two and Day Five.
Look who is back in the Kerala Ranji Camp. Also that upper 🤩
@sreesanth36 https://t.co/x0IF4dMrMI
The teams can practice on February 15 and 16 before the commencement of the Ranji Trophy on February 17.
Ranji Trophy pre-quarterfinal to be played across five days
The BCCI has also made the pre-quarterfinal a five-day affair instead of the usual four-day match. The pre-quarterfinal, to be played in the first phase of the tournament, will commence on March 11.
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All teams who will take part in the round-of-16 clash will have to undergo a mandatory four-day quarantine.
Karanataka team fixtures for the league stage of Ranji Trophy 2021-22:
1. Uttarakhand, 13 Jan,
2. Hyderabad, 20 Jan,
3. Maharashtra, 27 Jan,
4. Mumbai, 3 Feb,
5. Delhi, 10 Feb.
All games will be held in Kolkata. #RanjiTrophy
The second phase of the Ranji Trophy, comprising of the quarter-finals, semi-finals and the final, will be held from May 30. There will be 57 games in the first phase with seven games scheduled in the second.
Thirty-two teams have been divided into eight elite groups of four while six teams form the plate division. The pre-quarterfinal will take place between the least ranked qualified team of eight Elite Groups and the plate group topper.
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