Ranji Trophy: Plenty of incentives for hopefuls as the grind begins

: There is an ever-so-slight feast and famine feel to this season’s Ranji Trophy.

The opening round of India’s premier red-ball competition, which begins on Sunday, is set to feature a battery of stars, including Karnataka’s K.L. Rahul and Mumbai’s Yashasvi Jaiswal.

But after that, the big guns are expected to depart for New Zealand, first for the A-series and then the Tests.

Yet, history shows that the Ranji terrain has seldom suffered a drought of great stories. The tournament is in its 10th decade, but like a classic old fiddle, it continues to play the good tunes.

One needs to look no further than the previous campaign when Jammu & Kashmir won its maiden Ranji title by overcoming past champions in Madhya Pradesh, Bengal and Karnataka consecutively.

Auqib Nabi’s chart-topping 60 wickets fashioned that historic triumph, and his prize was an India cap, albeit in the one-day game.

Vidarbha left-arm spinner Harsh Dubey’s 69 wickets in 2024-25 did not go unnoticed. Neither did Karnataka southpaw R. Smaran’s competition-leading 950 runs in 2025-26.

Harsh has since played for India (ODIs), and Smaran, following his match-winning effort for Rest of India in the recent Irani Cup, will soon fly out to New Zealand with the A-squad.

With the Ranji Trophy running parallelly to the National team’s busy home season, there is always a lurking fear that the tournament may struggle to attract interest.

But this time, there will certainly be a National selector or two glancing over, for it will bookend India’s upcoming Test series versus New Zealand and Australia, which are also the last two opportunities for Shubman Gill & Co. to make the grade for the World Test Championship final.

The 2026-27 Ranji Trophy will start just over a month before the first of two Tests against the Kiwis in Wellington. It is scheduled to finish on the same day Australia will end its five-Test Indian sojourn in Ahmedabad in March 2027.

Like the previous two editions, it will be played in two phases, with the Vijay Hazare Trophy (50 overs) and Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (T20) sandwiched in between.

However, in a slight departure, the first phase will see four rounds of group-stage matches instead of five, with the other three played mid-January onwards.

Fixtures will also come thick and fast, with no more than four days’ gap. But such is the allure of the red ball that one can always bet on a willing mind dragging a tired body over the line.