BCCI Postpones Ranji Trophy, Col C K Nayudu Trophy & Senior Women’s T20 League For 2021-22 Season Due To Rising COVID Cases

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), on Tuesday, January 4, 2022, decided to protect the cricketers of all age groups by putting on hold all cricketing activities in the country, including upcoming tournaments like the Ranji Trophy 2022. This is due to the rising number of cases of COVID-19 cases in the country in recent months.

This is mainly due to the new variant of the Coronavirus that was discovered in Gauteng, South Africa, which has been dubbed Omicron. It has been established that the Omicron variant, though less lethal than the Delta variant, is highly transmissible, something that was seen in Gauteng.

The province saw an exponential rise in cases with one month, which then plateaued after a month’s time. However, experts in the country have said that India has started to experience the third wave of the COVID-19 cases, with over 33,000 being reported over the last 24 hours and 1892 of them being Omicron ones.

BCCI Puts On Hold Ranji Trophy 2022 And Other Domestic Tournaments

India had experienced an exponential rise in cases and death during the second wave of COVID in March of 2021, which saw the country report over 4 lakh cases per day and thousands dying each day.

Hence to keep players and officials safe, the BCCI decided to postpone the Ranji trophy and other tournaments like Col C K Nayudu Trophy and Senior Women’s T20 League for the 2021-22 season.

“The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Tuesday announced the postponement of the Ranji Trophy, Col C K Nayudu Trophy & Senior Women’s T20 League for the 2021-22 season in the wake of the rising COVID-19 cases in the country. The Ranji Trophy & Col C K Nayudu Trophy were scheduled to begin this month while the Senior Women’s T20 League was scheduled to commence in February.

BCCI does not want to compromise the safety of the players, support staff, match officials and other participants involved and hence, has decided to put the three tournaments on hold till further notice. The BCCI will continue to assess the situation and take a call on the start of the tournaments accordingly.

BCCI thanks and continues to appreciate the efforts of the healthcare workers, state associations, players, support staff, match officials and all the service providers who put their best foot forward to host more than 700 matches across 11 tournaments in the current 2021-22 domestic season,” the BCCI said in an official statement.

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