Indian domestic itinerary revised

The Duleep Trophy, the Indian domestic competetion between zonal teams, has been advanced so that the national players can participate in the tournament. It will now be held from February 15 to March 12. The Indian board also announced that Bangladesh would take part in the tournament.

According to Ratnakar Shetty, the joint secretary of the board, the dates had been brought forward "in order to give the Indian players better exposure to the longer version of the game prior to the Test matches against Pakistan."

The Duleep Trophy was previously scheduled to be held from February 25 to March 22 in various venues across central zone. Pakistan are scheduled to visit India in the last week of February to play three Tests and five one-day internationals.

The Ranji Trophy one-day knock-out tournament has been postponed by two months and will now be held in Mumbai from April 8 to 14. The other domestic ODI tournaments - the league phase of the one-day tournament, the Deodhar Trophy and the Challenger Trophy - remain the same. However, the dates of the Ranji Trophy semi-finals will now be held between March 18 to 22 while the final is scheduled for March 30 to April 3.