Ranji's Empty Chairs and the Silence of the Selection Room: Where Indian Cricket's Real Machinery Runs

At the outer gate of Motera, no one in the seven a.m. crowd was in a hurry. A security guard was pouring tea from a thermos, two teenagers were photographing the scorecard, and inside, behind a third-floor window, an official sat with a stack of files. This was not the morning of a Test match. It was the first day of a Ranji fixture, and when the first ball was bowled, the crowd in the stands was so thin that the words of the stadium announcement rang out distinctly, syllable by syllable. The silence that hung around while waiting for the bus persisted inside the ground as well. Over the years I have learned that the empty stands of Ranji Trophy are the truest mirror of the entire Indian cricket system—there is no crowd because there is no ticket-revenue arithmetic to sustain it, and that is precisely why every detail, every change, every dropped ball there becomes more significant.

The calendar of Indian domestic cricket is going through a peculiar phase. This season, Ranji Trophy fixtures and limited-overs tournaments are spread out in a way that several teams must stay in one city for three to four consecutive weeks, while others must travel to another state within a two-day gap. This is nothing new, but its impact is now becoming clearer. When you watch twelve to fourteen Ranji matches in a single season, you realize that this tournament is not a laboratory for talent identification but an exercise in logistics—where players break down physically, coaches compromise on resources, and selectors navigate a system in which even the best performer must often be in the right place at the right time to reach the national team.

To understand the structure of Ranji Trophy, you must look not at its history but at its calendar. The domestic calendar of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is constructed in such a way that the windows left between international series and the Indian Premier League (IPL) are used to cram in Ranji, Duleep Trophy, Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, and Vijay Hazare Trophy. This means that in a single season, any domestic player may have to spend roughly 90 to 110 days on the cricket field—including travel, practice sessions, matches, and recovery. This number becomes even more punishing for players who go unsold in the IPL auction, because they have neither financial security nor access to a franchise's medical team.

In a conversation with a domestic coach, he told me that his team had matches in three different cities this season, and on all three occasions they were not allowed to stay in the same hotel because the booking had not been made in advance. This sounds like a small thing, but when a player has to sleep in three different beds over fourteen days and is then expected to maintain rhythm on the field, it directly affects performance. Players' injuries are often not the fault of bowling action or batting technique; they are the fault of the calendar. The BCCI calendar places domestic cricket in a situation where players play continuously but do not have access to recovery scientists, sleep specialists, or nutritionists the way IPL franchises do.

Here is another thing I have noted: the average attendance at Ranji Trophy matches is often not even recorded in the official data of state associations. This silence is not accidental. When you do not want to measure a tournament's audience, you also make yourself less accountable to it. By contrast, every IPL match has a full accounting of ticket revenue, broadcast ratings, and fan engagement. This double standard affects those domestic players who dream of reaching the national team but feel that their performance is not looked at beyond the scorecard.

Another layer has been added to Indian domestic cricket this season. Several senior players are not playing in this year's Ranji Trophy because they have been kept under bio-bubble or rest management with the national team. This is, in a way, correct—it is necessary to manage top players—but it directly affects team balance. A Ranji team suddenly takes the field without its most experienced batsman or fast bowler, and young players are handed a responsibility for which they have not been prepared. I saw in a match this season that a 20-year-old bowler was given the new ball for the first time because the team's senior fast bowler was with the national team. The youngster conceded two boundaries in his first over, but in his fifth over he bowled three consecutive bouncers—control went, but courage did not. That was the moment I thought that the biggest product of domestic cricket is not just players but their struggle—and that struggle often remains invisibly hidden.

Now the question arises: is Ranji Trophy really the selection process we believe it to be? To an outsider, taking 60 wickets or scoring 800 runs in Ranji is a major achievement. But what happens in the selectors' room is different. The value of 60 wickets taken in a Ranji match is determined by the pitch on which they were taken, the opposition against which, and what the team's situation was. If a bowler takes four wickets bowling 40 overs on a flat pitch, he is considered better than a bowler who takes five wickets in 20 overs on a green pitch—because selectors look at who can sustain rhythm over a long period. But this criterion has a side effect: bowlers who excel on green pitches are often labeled 'condition-dependent,' while those who show patience on flat pitches remain more secure in the system. This bias is not deliberate but a consequence of the system's reporting—not every Ranji match report reaches selectors in depth, so they often decide on the basis of scorecards and a few video clips.

In the context of women's cricket, this silence is even deeper. After the 2026 World Cup, a new wave emerged around women's cricket—following the WPL (Women's Premier League) season, it was hoped that domestic women's cricket would receive equal coverage. But the reality is that matches of the Women's Ranji Trophy (now called the Women's Senior Trophy) do not get as much broadcast or media coverage. I went to a local ground this season to watch women's domestic matches—the crowd was under two hundred, and the number of journalists present was four. Three of them were stringers for local newspapers, there mainly to copy the scorecard. When I asked a player how she felt about her matches receiving so little coverage, her answer was: 'We are used to it.' That answer troubled me for days.

WPL has brought money and recognition to women's cricket, but this money primarily reaches players who are already established or chosen by franchises. For players at the domestic level, neither match fees nor travel facilities have seen significant improvement. The BCCI has launched some new schemes for women's domestic cricket in recent years, but until the benefit of these schemes reaches the player on the ground, it remains progress on paper. The real test of women's cricket is not how many people watched the WPL final, but how many domestic women's matches get space on television or digital platforms next season.

There is another aspect to this whole discussion that I would like to connect to my own experience. In 2026, when I covered a Test match for the first time, I believed that cricket's biggest stories are written inside the field. But after watching domestic cricket closely, I understood that the real stories are written outside the field—in the team bus, in the hotel lobby, on the chairs outside the selection committee's room. I once took a six-hour bus journey with a team in which no player spoke a single word. They lost the next match, and I felt the reason for the defeat was not just cricket. When I asked the coach, he said: 'Some journeys are such that the team cannot hold itself together.' This is the silence I want to record in my reporting—because the scorecard does not tell what happened on that bus that day.

Another thing that is often missed in domestic cricket coverage is players' medical conditions and their comeback process. When a senior player recovers from injury, there is much speculation about his return, but the real information lies only with the team management and medical staff. Due to the BCCI's medical confidentiality policy, this information does not reach the public. The result is that when a player suddenly returns, guesses are made about his performance, while the real situation may be something else. I saw a case in which a player was declared 'fit,' but his pace on the field was not what it used to be. When I asked a coach about this, he said: 'He has not fully recovered yet, but the team needs him.' This is the area where transparency is most lacking—and this lack most affects players' careers.

Now I come to the point that matters most to me. Outsiders often assume that the IPL has given Indian cricket money and popularity, and that domestic cricket has become stronger than before because players from rural areas and smaller towns now get opportunities. This is half true. The IPL has certainly opened some new doors, but it has reduced the relevance of the Ranji Trophy—especially for players who are not picked in the IPL. A player who performs consistently in Ranji but goes unsold in the IPL auction must depend for his livelihood on Ranji match fees and a state association job. Many such players quit cricket by the age of 30 because they feel the system will not take them further.

I saw an example of this this season. A 29-year-old batsman who had scored 700+ runs consistently over the last three seasons did not enter the IPL auction this time. When I asked him why, his answer was: 'Now I feel I am only playing for Ranji.' That sentence stays with me, because it contains all the disappointment that sits on the faces of players stranded at the margins of domestic cricket. Calling the Ranji Trophy a 'trophy' is fine, but for those players it is also a lifeline, and when that line weakens, the whole system shakes.

Now there is another side to this whole debate that I would call counter-intuitive. The common perception is that domestic cricket gets little coverage because there is no audience. But my experience says something else. There is no audience because there is no coverage, not the other way around. When you do not show a tournament on television, do not update its scorecard properly, and do not write the stories of its players, why would the audience come? A big reason for the IPL's success is its broadcast quality and marketing, not just cricket. Ranji Trophy has neither broadcast quality nor a marketing budget. So the comparison itself is flawed. Until state associations and the BCCI spend as much on promoting domestic cricket as they do on the IPL, this tournament will remain a formality for players and for the media.

One more change is needed in this situation—the way domestic matches are reported. Right now, most domestic match reporting is limited to the scorecard—who scored how many runs, who took how many wickets. But the real story is beyond that: How did a young player feel playing Ranji for the first time? How did a coach manage his team when three of his players were injured? How did a bowler send down 10 consecutive overs when his body was breaking? These questions are the real story of domestic cricket. I have begun prioritizing these questions in my reporting, and I feel that if we see domestic cricket through this lens, its importance will not seem less than the IPL.

Looking ahead, I feel the next big question for Indian cricket is: Will the BCCI change the domestic cricket calendar in a way that gives players relief while maintaining the quality of matches? In the current situation, players play continuously and break down. If the same calendar continues next season, we will see more injuries, and the story behind those injuries will be the same as we have seen before—less rest, less recovery, and fewer facilities. The players sitting on chairs outside the selection room perhaps do not even know when their next chance will come. And when that chance comes, it will be as sudden as the arrival of a morning bus—without any prior notice.

Will this silence of domestic cricket ever break? Perhaps not, until we—journalists, spectators, and fans—stop looking away from the empty stands. Because the day we stop looking at those empty chairs, we will lose the real machinery of Indian cricket that gives birth to every big star, and whose sound is heard only by those who keep their ears open outside the field as well.