On Wednesday, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced the domestic fixture for the 2018/19 season where over 2,000 matches will be played. BCCI also announced the new Ranji Trophy format where a total of 37 teams will participate in this season.

While all the 28 teams of the last season will play the Elite group, the new nine teams will play the Plate group. The Elite group will be divided into the three groups where nine teams will be allotted each in the Group A and Group B and the other ten teams will be seeded in the Group C.

Meanwhile, Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Puducherry, Sikkim and Uttarakhand are the new nine teams who will compete in the Plate group.

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Total five top teams from Group A and B, two top teams from Group C and the only the top-position team of Plate group will qualify for the Quarter-final round.

Also, the top-positioned Plate group team will be promoted to the Elite Group C for the next season while the bottom-placed team of Elite Group C will be relegated to the next season’s Plate group.

Moreover, the top two teams of the Elite Group C will be promoted to the next season’s Elite Group A and Group B while the bottom teams of the Elite Group A and Group B will be relegated to the next season’s Elite Group C.

While the Ranji Trophy will begin on November 1, the knockout rounds will begin on January 15, 2019. After the completion of Ranji Trophy, the one-off Irani trophy will be played between the Ranji Trophy winner and the Rest of India which will begin on February 11, 2019.

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The domestic season will begin on August 17 with the Duleep trophy which is a four-day format.

The 37 teams will also feature in the Vijay Hazare Trophy and the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy of the upcoming season. The List-A format Vijay Hazare Trophy will start on September 19 while the T20 format Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy will kick-off on February 21, 2019, after the Irani trophy.

Besides that, the BCCI has also expanded the women’s domestic season as well as the junior level domestic season for both men and women. As the 2018 ICC Women’s World T20 will be played in this November, the women’s domestic season will begin with the T20 format that named Senior Women’s T20 Challenger Trophy. The women’s domestic season will begin on August 13.