The Ranji test

It is a cross-country cricket journey,played not on the most splendid grounds,but over a bruising three months where batsmen and bowlers are tasked to find their game and groove. Its meant to be the sparring of the best of Indian cricketers,the coliseum from where they reach for the holy grail of Team India,where champions are discovered and often,once they fall from grace in international cricket,where they are rediscovered. The Ranji Trophy is supposed to be all these and more. Eight years after winning the World Cup,it was part of that mystique that made Kapil Dev hungry for a Ranji win,that goaded him to push Haryana past Bombay,which had won the trophy an incredible 30 times,past the sixes of an 18-year-old Sachin Tendulkar and the tears of Dilip Vengsarkar,for an extraordinary,exhausting two-run win.

But as the latest Ranji edition resumes,the sports best minds need to ask: has enough been done to transform the tournament for the times? Even as the game undergoes tremendous changes,is Ranji what it should,and can,be? This is where Yuvraj Singh,after he was dropped from the Test team,clawed his way back after scoring 313 runs in three Ranji matches for Punjab. But,otherwise,arent the best players,after a punishing international calendar,abandoning the domestic circuit,depriving it of both star appeal and engrossing contests? There has been a change in the format over the past decade,with the Elite and Plate divisions separating the top teams from the minnows,but is that enough? That old rule in the case of a draw,points will go to the team leading on the first innings ensures teams are content with a big first-innings score than in pushing for a win.

The Ranji Trophy is the necessary grind,but it could do with a lot more better grounds,format and financing to be the glamorous showcase of domestic cricket.