The Board of Control for Cricket in India released the schedule for the 2022-23 domestic season on Monday. Over 1500 matches will be played over the season, which begins in the first week of September 2022 and ends in mid-March 2023.
The famous Duleep Trophy will kick off a full-fledged season that will also include the revival of the Irani Cup. The Duleep Trophy will be fought on a knockout format amongst six zones (North, South, Central, West, East, and Northeast) from September 8th to September 25th. The Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and the Vijay Hazare Trophy will follow the two multi-day tournaments. The two white-ball events will have 38 teams divided into three groups of eight teams and two groups of seven teams.
The Ranji Trophy, India’s top domestic tournament, will feature two divisions: Elite and Plate. The Elite Group will consist of 32 teams divided into four groups of eight teams in a home-and-away format, with each team playing seven league matches. The top two teams in each of the four groups will advance directly to the quarterfinals.
The Plate Group will consist of 6 clubs playing 15 league matches, with the top four immediately qualifying for the semi-finals and the worst two competing for 5th/6th place. Both the Elite Group and Plate Group league matches will begin on December 13th, with the Plate League completing on January 29th and the Elite Group concluding on February 2nd.
This season, the Senior Women’s Interzonal T20 and one-day tournaments have been reinstated. The Board will hold a one-day event for females at the U-16 level for the first time. The competition will provide the women a taste of competitive cricket at a young age, allowing them to transfer more smoothly to the U-19 level.
South Africa will also host the inaugural ICC U19 Women’s T20 World Cup in January, hence the women’s U19 T20 Trophy and Women’s U19 T20 Challenger will take place from October 1st to November 7th.
