BCCI to review rescheduling of Ranji games

BCCI's senior tournament committee will meet on Tuesday to review the rescheduling of two Ranji Trophy games -- Gujarat’s Group A tie against Bengal and Hyderabad’s Group C match against Tripura -- that were called off due to high levels of smog in Delhi in November.

High levels of smog forced two Ranji trophy games to be cancelled in Delhi in November.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) senior tournament committee will meet on Tuesday to revisit the board’s earlier decision to reschedule two Ranji Trophy league games that were abandoned last month due to air pollution in New Delhi.

"The committee will finalise whether to reschedule the two games in question," Ajay Shirke, the BCCI secretary who is the convener of the senior tournament committee, said on Monday.

"Since the scheduled last round of the league stage starts on Wednesday, it is appropriate that a decision on whether those two matches will be replayed or not is taken before the round starts, so we have called the meeting tomorrow."

The BCCI on November 6 had announced that Gujarat’s Group A tie against Bengal and Hyderabad’s Group C match against Tripura would be rescheduled after smog forced the match officials to call the game off on the second day.

After consulting the technical committee, headed by former India captain and Cricket Association of Bengal president Sourav Ganguly, Shirke had announced the matches would be held again. The two games were later slotted from December 15 to 18, after the conclusion of the league stage, thus extending the knockout stage.

The move was then protested by multiple BCCI affiliates. While the Mumbai Cricket Association and Tamil Nadu Cricket Association wrote letters opposing the move, some of the other senior members said that the technical committee had no business in dealing with scheduling of Ranji Trophy in a BCCI meeting in New Delhi last week. As a result, the BCCI had decided to refer the matter to the senior tournament committee.

Neither MCA nor TNCA officials have been invited to make a case for the meeting, but their letters will be discussed.

While Shirke reiterated it would be entirely up to the six committee members, headed by BCCI vice-president Gautam Roy, another BCCI insider stressed it is unlikely that the committee will allow the games to be replayed. "It will set a bad precedent in domestic cricket and even weather-affected matches will then be asked to be rescheduled," he said.