The BCCI technical committee has decided to replace inter-zonal system of the Duleep Trophy by four all-India level teams picked by the selection panel. The committee, headed by Sourav Ganguly also decided to to have all Ranji matches from the coming season at neutral venues.

“The committee discussed the format for Duleep Trophy for the season 2016-17. It was recommended that selectors would pick four teams to participate in a round-robin format tournament. The entire tournament will be a day/night affair,” a BCCI release stated.

“In a bid to make domestic cricket more competitive and rule out the issues related to preparing specific wickets for home teams, as well as to expose players to play in different conditions, the BCCI Technical Committee recommended neutral venues for the Ranji Trophy matches This is a step recommended to make domestic Ranji Trophy cricket more competitive,” the release stated.

BCCI President Anurag Thakur and BCCI Secretary Ajay Shirke were also present in the meeting. With BCCI planning to host a day-night test in near future, BCCI President Thakur proposed that all the players who are in contention of a place in the test team should get a chance to get used to the pink ball.

“The president feels that like Challenger Trophy, this season’s Duleep should have all the big players as well as Test hopefuls getting a chance to play with pink balls under lights. That’s why it has been decided there will be no zonal system this time round,” a member of the technical committee said on Sunday.

Former Indian captain Ganguly also proposed the idea of having a quality foreign team in the Duleep Trophy but it was rejected by the other board members.

“Ganguly’s proposal was duly considered. But then we felt that supposedly we call a first-class side from Australia and if they lose the first match in knock-out system, the purpose of inviting them would get lost,” the source added.