Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2016 season preview

The Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy started when BCCI launched the structure in the 2006-07 season with 27 Ranji teams divided into 5 Zones with the name of Inter-State T20 Championship which was renamed and re-launched to its current form. Baroda and Gujarat are the 2 most successful teams in the competition’s history having won it twice and the latter will enter the 2016 edition as defending champions.

Earlier this year captains and coaches of Ranji Trophy teams had demanded a revamp of the domestic cricket calendar and suggested that the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy be held before the IPL auction. According to player representatives, the previous scheduling of the tournament did not serve its purpose of helping cricketers get noticed by IPL franchises, and did not attract top cricketers, either. For the last three seasons, the tourney had been held at the end of the domestic calendar and often, the tournament’s super league stage has clashed with the IPL.

The same scenario repeated itself this year as zonal leagues were played in the last weeks of March before the start of the Super League in the first week of April in Bhubaneswar. The opening match of IPL 2015 was played on April 8.

In 2014, the BCCI made it mandatory for all players contracted in the IPL to play for their respective teams in the zonal leagues of the tournament but allowed them to skip the super league and join their IPL franchises instead. This affected the quality of matches in the super league and the teams’ strategies.

This season though has brought good news for all parties concerned as the tourney will be held before the WorldT20 and the 2016 IPL. This means players will get a great chance to impress not just the IPL talent scouts but also the national selectors. The first match will be played on 2nd January and the tournament will end with the final to be played in Mumbai on 20th of the same month.

The teams have been divided into four groups with three of these comprising of seven teams each and one with 6 teams. The qualification criteria is similar to the one witnessed in Vijay Hazare Trophy as top 2 teams will go through to the next round. The Super League will be divided into 2 groups of 4 teams each and the group winners will directly contest the final since semi-finals aren’t a part of the format.

Having won the recently concluded Vijay Hazare Trophy, the defending champions Gujarat will enter this year’s Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy as one of the favourites. Players like skipper Parthiv Patel, Rush Kalaria, Jasprit Bumrah, RP Singh, Chirag Gandhi, Manpreet Juneja and Axar Patel make them a versatile outfit. Challenging them in Group A will be Himachal Pradesh, Vidarbha, Hyderabad, Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Haryana. This is easily the toughest group of all featuring the winner, 2 semi-finalists and a quarter-finalist of the previous domestic competition (Vijay Hazare Trophy).

Group B features Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Tripura, Kerala and Saurashtra. The formidable Punjab outfit which includes the likes of skipper Harbhajan Singh, Yuvraj Singh, Siddarth Kaul, Mandeep Singh and Manan Vohra look a good bet to go through to the next round. Jharkhand with players like skipper Shahbaz Nadeem, Ishank Jaggi and Saurabh Tiwary should provide a tough challenge. Saurashtra has the in-form wicketkeeper batsman Sheldon Jackson along with skipper Jaydev Shah and Jaydev Unadkat, and will look to punch above their weight.

Delhi, the runners-up of Vijay Hazare Trophy, and Baroda look clear favourites to qualify from Group C which also features Madhya Pradesh, Andra, Goa, Assam and Railways. Skipper Gautam Gambhir will lead a strong squad that features the likes of Unmukt Chand, Pawan Negi, Ashish Nehra and Pradeep Sangwan. Baroda’s powerful lineup includes skipper Irfan Pathan, Deepak Hooda, Bhargav Bhatt, Hardik Pandya, Munaf Patel, Yusuf Pathan and Pinal Shah.

Group D is another tough group that features six teams- Mumbai, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Services and Odisha. Karnataka has had a poor domestic season thus far and will be eager to get back to winning ways. Skipper Vinay Kumar will lead a strong squad that features the likes of Mayank Agarwal, Robin Uthappa, Stuart Binny, Karun Nair and Shreyas Gopal.

Mumbai will bank on skipper Aditya Tare, Shreyas Iyer, Abhishek Nayar, Suryakumar Yadav and Pravin Tambe and Iqbal Abdulla to produce the goods. While Uttar Pradesh is yet to announce the squad, one can expect to see Suresh Raina lead the team after being dropped from the national ODI team to tour Australia. The likes of Praveen Kumar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who was also dropped from the ODI team, Sarfaraz Khan and Piyush Chawla will add muscle to the team. All in all once expects to see a closely contested Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy this time around.

Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2016: Teams, Squads, Schedule and Fixtures