Kolkata: All six north eastern states will participate in the Ranji Trophy as individual teams in the next season assured the Vinod Rai led Committee of Administrators. They also said that Ratnakar Shetty, the BCCI GM (Game Development) has been given the charge of including them easily in the scheme of things.
The six north eastern states- Manipur, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland sat for a meeting with Rai for one and half hour with the appeal to allow them to compete in the domestic tournament as a combined unit this season.
Nonetheless, they were assured that they would be a part of the Ranji Trophy from the next season onwards as they would participate as separate states at the U-16, U-19 and U-23 age categories from this season.
After the meeting, north east convenor Naba Bhattacharjee in an interaction with PTI said, “Mr Rai told us that since Ranji Trophy is starting from October 6, it will be difficult to play this season. However we will be playing as individual states from next season. After all these years, this is the first time we have got complete assurance. Prof Shetty will look into implementation part.”
However, what would delight cricket fans in the north eastern part of the country is that the Vinoo Mankad Trophy (U-16) and the CK Nayudu Trophy (U-23) would have a specific zone from the north east, as decided by the CoA.
“The U-16 and U-23 BCCI tournaments are held zone wise. While Assam and Tripura continue to play in East Zone, a dedicated North East Zone will be created. The top two from the zone will qualify for the knock outs,” added Bhattacharjee.
However they might not compete in the Cooch Behar Trophy (U-19) as it’s schedule has already been prepared.
“The COA said that technical committee chairman Sourav Ganguly will take a call in this regard,” he said.
Vinod Rai asked the state units to file an affidavit which should be signed by their presidents and atleast 80 per cent of the Lodha recommendations must be followed, when these units asked for the handling out of annual grants.
Bhattacharjee said, “We told COA that you don’t need to disburse huge amounts to new units like us but enough funds to run the show.”
The Assam Cricket Association (ACA) has taken a loan of ₹6 crore from a bank for successfully organising a T20 match between India and Australia, scheduled to be held at the newly constructed stadium in Barsapara on the 10th of October.
Due to financial discrepancies in it’s audited accounts, the ACA doesn’t get any grants from the BCCI.
Pradip Buragohain, the secretary of the ACA said, “We are taking a bank loan of Rs 6 crore and CM of Assam Sarbananda Sonowal also has assured help on behalf of the state government.”