Srinagar: Legendary Sunil Gavaskar has suggested to triple Ranji Trophy fees and end tournament in December in order to avert Ishan Kishan like situation.
While appreciating the BCCI’s recent decision to provide incentives for Test players, Gavaskar emphasised the importance of adequately supporting the Ranji Trophy, which serves as a crucial platform for nurturing future Test talents.
“That is a wonderful thing by the BCCI to reward those who would be playing, but I would also request the BCCI to ensure that the feeder to the Test team, which is the Ranji Trophy, is also looked after”.
“If the Ranji Trophy fees can be doubled or tripled, certainly there’ll be a lot more people playing the Ranji Trophy, and a lot less pullouts from the Ranji Trophy, because if the fees of playing a Ranji Trophy match are a good fee, there will be fewer people pulling out for various reasons,” Gavaskar was quoted by Cricbuzz.
“I think what Rahul Dravid said, when it was announced in Dharamsala, that he would like to call it a reward. They will all be wanting to play with a slab system – every 10 first-class matches you get that much more so I would request the BCCI to look at that aspect as well,” Gavaskar said.
“My personal opinion is to have the Ranji Trophy from October to mid-December and then bring in the white-ball tournaments. That way, everybody will be available to play except for the ones featuring for India. There will be no real excuse to pull out. With the one-dayers beginning from January, people who are in the IPL can have enough practice from then,” said Gavaskar.