Super League: necessity or extravagance?

It has been reported that the BCCI is planning to make some changes in the structure of domestic cricket in order to make it more challenging and competitive. One of the ideas under consideration is to abolish the Ranji Trophy Super League and revert to the old system of two teams from each zone going through into a straight knockout format.

The intention of reducing the clutter in the domestic calendar by lopping off 30 Super League matches is laudable but the remedy is rather dubious. One of the main flaws in the schedule has been the inability to accommodate the Test stars into the cauldron of domestic cricket. The scrapping of the Super League will streamline the domestic fixtures and, with some judicious international scheduling, give a greater opportunity for participation from the Test players.

But if the intention is to raise the standards of the game, then the abolition of the Super League is a retrograde step. The standard of cricket at this level is fairly high, with the teams more or less evenly matched and the Super League contests certainly provide a more appropriate indicator of a side's abilities than the lopsided preliminary league. Indeed the better solution would be to retain the Super League and dispense with the zonal league instead. In other words, to introduce a class system by which the less fancied teams from all the zones are placed together in a sort of Bridesmaid's League while the big guns get to play against their own peers.

Thus both the birds of raising the level of the competition and keeping the number of fixtures at a minimum would be killed with the same stone, the stone being a two tier format. The whole system of having two or three teams going through from each zone is highly anachronistic and needs to be done away with. The idea is to have the best teams go through to the higher stages of the competition, never mind if they all happen to come from the same geographic region. The Ranji format has been tinkered with time and again and it would be a pity if this opportunity to infuse some vitality into a competition mired in drabness is passed up by a hastily taken decision in the corridors of power.