I grew up believing that a score of 84 made across a difficult afternoon could be more beautiful than a six landing in the twentieth row. This is an unfashionable confession, rather like admitting you still repair fountain pens. Test cricket has survived predictions of death for decades, but survival is a low bar. In India, the greater danger is not that people openly reject the format. It is that administrators publicly worship it while organising the domestic game as though first-class cricket were spare furniture.
The Ranji Trophy is supposed to be the workshop in which Indian Test cricketers learn patience, movement, fatigue and consequence. Instead, it is often squeezed around international windows, franchise commitments and logistical convenience. The BCCI maintains the tournament’s fixtures and results on its official domestic competition page, yet a fixture list alone is not a vision. A competition needs coherent scheduling, good surfaces, broadcast access and a hierarchy players can trust.
A red-ball culture cannot be summoned on demand
Whenever India’s Test batting struggles against movement or spin, the diagnosis becomes personal. This batter lacks technique. That player is impatient. Another has been corrupted by T20. There is truth in individual criticism, but I find it convenient that the institution designing the calendar escapes examination. Technique is not a software patch installed during a two-day camp. It is developed through long innings, repeated failures and seasons in which a player must solve different conditions.
First-class cricket teaches forms of discomfort that nets cannot reproduce. A batter begins again after lunch on 37. A bowler returns for a fourth spell when the ball is soft and the back is sore. A captain decides whether to pursue wickets or protect a lead. These are not romantic details. They are the decision-making muscles of Test cricket. If elite players rarely return to domestic competition, younger cricketers lose both the standard and the experience of confronting it.
I am not demanding that every centrally contracted player appear in every Ranji match. International workloads are real, fast bowlers need protection and pointless compulsion helps nobody. I am asking for a calendar in which available players are expected to participate, exemptions are transparent and the tournament is not treated as punishment administered after an international failure.
The debate flares whenever the BCCI tells omitted players to play domestic cricket, then fades once a star makes a score or receives another call-up. That episodic attention misunderstands the problem. The Ranji Trophy cannot be a remedial class for famous players. It must be a serious, continuous competition in which selection evidence accumulates and performances against strong opposition mean something.
Money solved one problem, not the structure
The BCCI has more resources than almost any cricket board in history. That is an advantage, not a moral failing. Domestic match fees and incentives can make first-class careers viable, and the board deserves credit when it improves compensation. But money without design can produce a well-paid maze. Players need rest windows, predictable travel, adequate practice time and pitches that reward complete skills.
India’s size makes the Ranji Trophy uniquely difficult. Conditions in Chennai, Dharamsala, Rajkot and Guwahati can feel like different cricketing countries. That variety should be the tournament’s great educational asset. It becomes a weakness when rushed schedules, weather and uneven preparation turn matches into lotteries. The answer is not centrally mandated identical pitches. It is accountable curation, published assessments and enough time for venues to prepare surfaces appropriate to four-day cricket.
Statistics also require context. A thousand runs sounds decisive until one examines opposition strength, match situations and surface quality. Selection should blend data with observation, but observation must be broader than a selector arriving for one morning. The detailed scorecards and season records maintained by outlets such as ESPNcricinfo’s Ranji Trophy coverage make the competition legible to committed followers; the board should go further with ball-tracking, video archives and open analytical tools across matches.
Broadcasting matters for more than popularity. When matches are visible, selection decisions become easier to interrogate, emerging players acquire identities and poor playing conditions cannot be hidden in a scorecard. The technology required to stream domestic cricket is no longer exotic. Not every match needs a twelve-camera television production, but every elite domestic fixture deserves reliable video, competent commentary and accessible highlights.
The IPL is not the villain
It is lazy to blame the IPL for everything. The league has improved incomes, athletic standards, tactical creativity and India’s depth in short-form cricket. I enjoy it. The problem begins when administrators assume one thriving product can carry the entire ecosystem. T20 and first-class cricket cultivate overlapping but distinct abilities. A player may succeed in both, but the path cannot be left to accident.
The IPL also demonstrates what deliberate presentation can achieve. Clear windows, recognisable teams, high-quality broadcasts and narrative continuity teach audiences that matches matter. The Ranji Trophy receives nearly the opposite treatment and is then blamed for lacking spectators. Fans are not born with an obligation to decode simultaneous games scattered across working days. Administrators must create an intelligible competition.
A dedicated block in the calendar would help. So would fewer interruptions, a meaningful championship structure and scheduled opportunities for India players to represent their states. I would also protect the Duleep Trophy and other high-level red-ball contests as genuine selection stages rather than annual experiments with formats and team names. Constant redesign signals that nobody quite believes in the product.
Coaches at domestic level need long-term support too. A former international’s name is not sufficient qualification. Teams require batting, bowling, strength, medical and analytical expertise that remains stable across seasons. The BCCI can set minimum professional standards while allowing associations to retain local knowledge. Some state units will resist oversight in the name of autonomy; autonomy without accountability is merely a nicer word for entitlement.
What the board owes Test cricket
The board often points to India’s enormous talent pool. I consider that phrase dangerous. A large population does not automatically produce Test-ready openers or fast bowlers capable of repeated spells. Talent must be noticed, coached, challenged and retained. When India succeeds despite structural disorder, administrators cite the depth as validation. When it fails, individual players absorb the blame. That asymmetry is comfortable and dishonest.
Selection needs clearer signals. If domestic performance is supposedly the route to the Test side, selectors should explain what qualities they value and why sustained excellence sometimes loses to potential identified elsewhere. They need not reveal confidential deliberations, but a system without intelligible rewards encourages players to chase visibility instead of mastery.
I would measure the Ranji Trophy by more than the final. How many frontline players participated when available? How many matches reached competitive fourth days? How many venues met pitch and facility standards? How quickly were injuries handled? How many uncapped performers progressed into India A cricket? Publish those answers annually and let associations compare themselves.
Test cricket will not be saved by solemn speeches at presentation ceremonies. It survives when a teenager sees a viable career in bowling twenty overs on a February afternoon, when a state veteran remains valued for skills that cannot be condensed into a montage, and when national selection respects evidence accumulated over years. Culture is a set of repeated institutional choices.
I am still not over Test cricket, and I hope never to be. That attachment does not require pretending the format exists outside economics or entertainment. It requires building the domestic conditions from which compelling Tests emerge. The BCCI is wealthy enough, powerful enough and staffed well enough to do this. The only scarce resource is attention.
Treat the Ranji Trophy as the foundation, schedule it like the foundation, broadcast it like the foundation and judge associations by how they maintain it. Then the next time India produces a batter who survives a hostile morning or a bowler who wins a match in the final hour, we can call it development rather than another miracle extracted from a warehouse.
