Greater Noida (Sports Desk): Ranji Trophy is the biggest domestic first-class cricket competition held in India each year, sponsored by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, or BCCI. The tournament is between teams that represent state and regional cricket associations. The BCCI established the competition in 1934, and since then, the championship has been played at many Indian stadiums and fields.
There are now 38 teams in the league, with at least one team from each of the 28 states of India and four of the eight union territories. The competition was originally known as “the Cricket Championship of India” at Wimbledon, but in 1935 it was renamed in honour of Ranjitsinhji, the first Indian player to compete internationally. He played for England between 1896 and 1902.
It was the record 42 titles in the competition where the Mumbai cricket team is at the top till date. In the 2023–24 title, currently, the trophy is with Mumbai cricket team; they won that title in the final at the Wankhede Stadium of Mumbai by winning over Vidarbha cricket team.
The first-class championship tournament was to be held at the national level, as proposed by A.S. De Mello, the founder of BCCI. The competition was started after the BCCI met in Shimla in July 1934, and the first matches were played in 1934–35.
Initially, the cricket tournament was named ‘The Cricket Championship of India’, but it was later changed. Maharaja of Patiala, Bhupinder Singh donated the trophy in memory of Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji, Jam Sahib of Nawanagar, who had died in the last year.
The first match of the competition was played on 4 November 1934 between Madras and Mysore at Chepauk ground in Madras, now Chennai. The maximum numbers of title has been taken by the teams from Mumbai, or Bombay, which won 42 titles, of which 15 title consecutively from 1958–59 to 1972–73 have been recorded.
Apart from this, four teams are region-based within a state: Mumbai and Vidarbha both within the state of Maharashtra as well as Saurashtra and Baroda within Gujarat though both states play as separate teams; there are also two pan-Indian teams: Railways which represents Indian Railways and Services which represent the Indian Armed Forces. The state of Telangana is represented by the Hyderabad cricket team.
