Rajeev Shukla, Indian Premier League chairman, has confirmed that the board had initially scrapped the Duleep Trophy from this year’s domestic calendar due to the paucity of time.
It was very much clear that the traditional curtain-raiser of India’s domestic season does not feature prominently in the Indian cricket calendar when Kochi was made the venue for the tournament during the peak monsoon season in 2013-14. Moreover, with the national players not prioritizing the tournament due to a busy cricket calendar in recent years have further decreased the relevance of the tournament.
The board made a frivolous attempt to revive the event by making it a day-night affair last year with the likes of Gautam Gambhir, Cheteshwar Pujara and Yuvraj Singh featuring in it. But surprisingly they omitted from this year’s calendar. It was only after the intervention of the Committee of Administrators and the board’s technical committee led by Sourav Ganguly that the board reversed its decision.
“With Duleep Trophy, there was a bit of confusion because two international tournaments were announced. There was a paucity of time. The domestic calendar was there and the international cricket was also about to begin. So there was a view that this time it could be done away with,” Shukla told Cricbuzz.
“But the technical committee made it very clear that Duleep Trophy should be there and the UPCA was informed just a week before. In one week’s time, we have made all the arrangements to host it,” he added.
The tournament has begun in Lucknow from Thursday (September 7) with India Red taking on India Green in the newly-built Ekana International Stadium.
Shukla further hoped that the new stadium and other facilities would help the association to take the game in every corner of Uttar Pradesh.
“We want to provide cricket facilities to people of the entire state… We want to take cricket to every nook and corner of UP. We already have Green Park, a heritage stadium, which has been there for the last 90 years and even has a permanent Test status. Now this Lucknow stadium has been built, and we are also planning on building a stadium in the periphery of Delhi, in Ghaziabad,” he said.
“The good thing is that talent is in abundance in UP. The only thing was to tap the talent, to promote them, to push them, to provide them with facilities. This is what we have done in the last nine-ten years,” he added.