Earlier, there were reports that Duleep Trophy had been scrapped from India’s domestic cricketing calendar for the year 2017. But after a lot of controversies, it has been restored. The Chairman of the Technical Committee, Sourav Ganguly intervened and following his objection, the tournament has been introduced back.
Ganguly wrote to the BCCI general manager MV Sridhar, inquiring about the tournament and why he was not informed about the proceedings. “I am reading in the media that Duleep Trophy has not or may not take place this season. I don’t know that’s true or not but if you remember, the members of the technical committee had agreed to use pink balls again for the Duleep matches and the tournament was supposed to be held in the same format as last year,” Dada wrote in an e-mail.
After Ganguly’s involvement, CoA reversed the decision. “The Duleep Trophy has been restored. It will be held and logistics will be worked out. We have told BCCI not to scrap it. It should be there. It is a very prestigious tournament and it should be held. It will be held this season,” said CoA member Diana Edulji in the media conference.
A new stadium
Duleep Trophy is expected to be organized in the newly constructed Ekana International Cricket Stadium in Lucknow in the month of September. The matches will be played with the pink ball and will be day/night.
The stadium will host only the first and the last match of the tournament and the remaining matches will be played at the Green Park Stadium in Kanpur.
“The opening and final matches will be played at the Lucknow Stadium while the remaining two matches are scheduled at the Green Park Stadium in Kanpur,” UPCA’s acting secretary Yudhveer Singh told HT on Wednesday.
“We have been communicated the schedule of the matches. We are ready to conduct the matches,” Ekana Sports City’s director Udai Sinha told HT. “We have put our best efforts to create this stadium and we can even hold international matches in future,” he said.
