Two-tier format in Ranji from next season

vadodara: the cricket board's technical committee on saturday decided that it would be prudent to chance the current league-cum-knock-out format of the ranji trophy into a two-tier system from the 2002-3 season onwards. "we thought it would be fair to allow all the associations to put their best foot forward this year and qualify for the elite group next season," sunil gavaskar, chariman of the committee, told reporters."we need to have more competition and quality in domestic cricket," explained gavaskar as the reason for the change. india will be then following the english pattern which also has a large number of domestic teams unlike most other cricket playing countries who have about seven to eight teams. spelling out details of the proposed competition, cricket board secretary j y lele said the top two teams from the five zones will qualify for the elite group comprising of 10 teams. the remaining 17 teams will be divided into two groups consisting of nine and eight teams each. after nine matches, each of a four-day duration between the teams in the elite group, the side with the highest points would be declared ranji champions while the top two teams from the other two groups would fight for the ranji plate trophy. in the following season (2003-2004), the bottom three teams in the elite group will make way for the top three teams from the lower two groups. the team taking the first innings lead would get one point while an outright win would fetch two points and no points will be awarded for a draw or a rained off game. the quotient rule for deciding the winner in case of a tie would be the average of runs divided by wickets unlike the present runs-by-overs method. the duleep trophy matches will be conducted on a league basis only at centres where international matches are being held and the wickets will be supervised by the board's pitch committee. it was also decided that wickets in the duleep matches be left uncovered. another major decision taken on saturday was the reduction in length of the pitch from 22 to 21 yards in the under-14 cricket competition and a 5-ounce ball instead of the 5 and 1/2 ounce cherry. regarding india's upcoming tour of south africa next month, gavaskar informed that so far the ucbsa has not sent them the details of the playing conditions. "however, if they are planning to have 105 overs in a day's play like in zimbabwe, then we will be following the 90 overs rule stipulated by the icc." the decisions taken at the meeting, which was also attended by former bcci president raj singh dungarpur, chief national selector chandu borde, arun lal, anshuman gaekwad, kiran more and mp pandove, would be put to the working committee at its meeting on august 25 and the board's annual general meeting in september, lele said.