Mumbai, Nov 2: The 2011-12 Ranji Trophy (Elite) League, India's premier first-class domestic competition, revs up with defending champions Rajasthan taking on Karnataka in one of six matches that begin on November 3.
Participating teams
The tournament's league stage will end on December 24, with the knockout rounds slated between January 2 and 23, 2012. A total of 15 teams will compete in the league stage where the groupings are as follows:
Elite A (eight teams) – Rajasthan, KSCA, Mumbai, Railways, UPCA, Punjab, Saurashtra, Orissa
Elite B (seven teams) – Baroda, TNCA, Haryana, Delhi, Gujarat, Bengal, MPCA
The second-tier of the Ranji Trophy, the Plate division, will run parallel to the Elite League, with the winners of the semi-finals qualifying for the knockout stages of the main event.
Groups – Ranji Trophy Plate:
Plate A – Andhra, Services, Kerala, Vidarbha, HPCA, Tripura.
Plate B – Maharashtra, Goa, Hyderabad, Jharkhand, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir.
The complete list of the 2011-12 fixtures can be viewed here.
A brief history of the Ranji Trophy
The Ranji Trophy competition was launched in 1934 and Mumbai (then Bombay) emerged as the first ever winners of the competition when they defeated North India in the final. Mumbai have enjoyed unparalleled success in the Ranji Trophy, having won the competition as many as 39 out of the 77 times it has been played.
Rajasthan won their first ever Ranji Trophy title last year, having made it to the final on eight previous occasions in the 1960s and 1970s. Rajasthan beat Baroda in last year’s final to finally get their hands on the coveted Ranji Trophy.
Until the 2002-03 season, the Ranji Trophy was played on a zonal basis with 15 teams from the five zones – North, West, East, South and Central – competing for the trophy. The format was changed in the 2002-‘03 season; the zonal system was replaced by a two-division structure viz. the Elite Group, containing fifteen teams, and the Plate Group, containing the rest.
In the 2008-‘09 season, the current format was adopted to allow Plate Group teams to participate in the Ranji Trophy. The top two teams from each Plate sub-group contest the semi-finals; the winners of these two matches then join the top three from each Super League sub-group in an eight-team knockout tournament. The winner of this knockout tournament wins the Ranji Trophy.
The upcoming season
The 78th season of the Ranji Trophy competition promises to be an exciting one with a host of stars featuring in the tournament. Sourav Ganguly will turn out for Bengal, Irfan Pathan for Baroda, and Cheteshwar Pujara for Saurashtra. Harbhajan Singh will captain the Punjab side when they take on Uttar Pradesh in their first encounter at Mohali starting November 3.
