Mumbai's chief selector Rege welcomes talk of home and away Ranji concept

Mumbai's senior selection committee chairman Milind Rege reacted cheerfully to news of the majority of Ranji Trophy captains and coaches wanting the home and away concept reintroduced for the national championship

Milind Rege

Mumbai's senior selection committee chairman Milind Rege reacted cheerfully to news of the majority of Ranji Trophy captains and coaches wanting the home and away concept reintroduced for the national championship.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) organised a captains-cum-coaches conclave in Mumbai yesterday.

"Instead of making a calculation of how many people were on which side, what was done was that points made to substantiate a certain position on either of the two formats have been collated," the Board's acting secretary Amitabh Chaudhry was quoted as saying by PTI. It is learnt that Mumbai were represented by their skipper Aditya Tare while coach Chandrakant Pandit was out of town.

Rege, who led Mumbai in 1977-78, felt the neutral concept did not do any good for the tournament and players. Matches in the 2016-17 were held on neutral venues including the final, contested between Parthiv Patel's Gujarat and Aditya Tare's Mumbai in Indore. Following the final, the Irani Cup was held at Mumbai's Brabourne Stadium where Rest of India beat Gujarat.

"When I traveled for games last season, I noticed that apart from the two teams, the umpires and other officials, no one turned up," said Rege, who played in an era (1960s and 1970s) when domestic cricket was in its pomp.

The BCCI decided on neutral Ranji Trophy games to rule out pitch-doctoring by host teams. Rege agreed that was running away from the problem. "Stringent measures should be introduced for curators and associations should be heavily penalised for poor pitches. At the same time, what is a good pitch? A flat track cannot be called a good pitch whereas a fast track which causes the game to end in two days, cannot be termed as a fine strip. The BCCI should appoint strong people as observers who would give an honest view of a pitch," said Rege. The former off-spinner and attacking batsman also called for a two-day gap between Ranji Trophy and under-22 games so that an under-22 player can be drafted into the Ranji team.

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