Pic Courtesy: Xtratime
Kolkata: According to the BCCI, the controversy regarding the neutral venue is now resolved after the board has decided to do away with it and from this season onward, the Ranji Trophy will be played on home and away basis. Playing the game in neutral venues has been objected by many captains and coaches, and after today’s meeting the Chairman of BCCI technical committee said that decision to do away with neutral venue has been unanimously voted by the board members.
“The BCCI technical committee has decided to go back to home and away system in the upcoming Ranji season. The board would announce the schedule at the earliest,” Ganguly told media after the technical committee meeting in Kolkata.
The league matches would be held at home and away venues while the knockout matches will be played in neutral venues.
“Due to the addition of Chhattisgarh, the total number of teams playing Ranji trophy became 28, 9+9+10 teams will be skewed into 4 pools with the top 2 teams qualifying for the finals” said Amitabh Chaudhury.
“Couple of games would be reduced, which would make the competition much tougher. Along with the captains and coaches, we too want the matches to played in home and away basis” said Sourav Ganguly.
Captains and coaches earlier complained that a major disadvantage of playing in neutral venues was not getting home support. The neutral venue system was introduced last year to end home advantage and make Ranji Trophy more competitive.
Another thing that was supposed to change was the introduction of pink ball in Duleep trophy. However Sourav claimed that the format won’t be changed this year.
“The board will continue with pink ball in Duleep Trophy,” the former India captain said.
However, there is a section in BCCI which feels that the day-night Test cricket isn’t happening anytime soon and therefore staging Duleep Trophy with pink ball would be a futile exercise. To this Ganguly said: “I can’t say about who is thinking what. As far as I am concerned, Duleep Trophy would continue with pink ball and the technical committee took this decision unanimously.”