Bengal open Ranji campaign against Tripura

Bengal will start their Ranji Trophy campaign this year with a match against Tripura at the Eden Gardens. The tie will start on November 19. According to the domestic fixtures released in Calcutta on Wednesday, Bengal this time, will play three matches at home including the one against Tripura. The other two matches will be against Orissa from December 24 to 27 and against Bihar from January 3 to 6, 2001.

Calcutta will also host the Ranji Trophy one day tournament involving the five sides from the East Zone. The tournament will start with a match between Bengal and Assam on December 3 and will end on December 10. The top team will qualify for the Wills Trophy. There was a proposal to shift the venue of the one day tournament to Siliguri. However, the Cricket Association of Bengal turned it down because of the paucity of grounds at Siliguri.

Two new tournaments will also start this year on a zonal basis. They are the under-14 and under-22 tournaments. This is the first time that a tournament will be played at the under-14 level while the under-22 tournament is being revived after a gap of around 10 years.