The BCCI on Tuesday announced that there would be a four-day gap between Ranji Tophy matches after the third round during the upcoming 2013-14 season and matches will be played only during weekends.
For the last few seaons, there was only a three-day break between the matches and players had to make lots of adjustments between travelling and training. There had been an increase in the injuries and complaints about burn-outs of players, especially fast bowlers, since there was no time to recover.
BCCI’s Tour Programme and Fixtures Committee met at the Cricket Centre in Mumbai on Monday to finalise the domestic cricket schedule for the 2013-14 season.
The committee decided to implement the decisions taken by the Technical Committee in its previous meeting which included every team will play four ‘home’ and four ‘away’ games in the Ranji league phase.
“The Tour Programme and Fixtures Committee of the BCCI met at the Cricket Centre in Mumbai, on Monday, 1 July 2013, to finalise the domestic cricket schedule for the 2013-14 season. The detailed tournament schedule will be displayed on www.Bcci.Tv on Monday, 8 July 2013,” BCCI said in a release.
Other significant decisions were: Ranji knockout games will be played at venues to be identified by the Ground and Pitches Committee, in consultation with the Chairman of the Technical Committee; knockout matches of Vijay Hazare Trophy and all Deodhar Trophy matches will be played under lights; under-25 matches will start a day after Ranji so that non-playing players can play the under-25 games; no bonus points in one-day games; SG Test balls will be used for Ranji Trophy and Under-25 matches; Under-16 and Under-19 matches will be played with SG Tournament Special balls.