The Ranji Trophy championship may be the national competition but in many ways, the Duleep Trophy is more important. It certainly is the more glamorous with the cream of Indian cricketers from the five zones taking part. It was instituted in 1961-62 as a means to strengthen competition around the domestic circuit when it was noticed that playing standards in the Ranji Trophy, after 25 years, had stagnated.

The championship has come a long way since the inaugural match between South Zone and North Zone at Madras. A premier national competition, it has frequently served as a selection trial for picking the national teams. A good performance in the Duleep Trophy has often been the ticket to a berth in the Indian squad.

In recent years, many leading cricketers have been unable to compete in the Duleep Trophy thanks to the overcrowded international calendar, but the competition has always retained its prestige and importance. The dominant teams have been West Zone, South Zone and North Zone who have won the trophy 14, 11 and 12 times respectively. Central Zone have established their claims on four occasions. On three occasions, the trophy has been shared when the first innings have not been completed. East Zone remains the only team yet to win the trophy.

The Duleep Trophy was the brainchild of the then Board of Control for Cricket in India president MA Chidambaram. After more than 25 years, it could be seen by the early 60s that the standard in the Ranji Trophy had deteriorated. The National competition, which had seen many stirring contests in its halcyon days in the thirties and forties had fallen on bad days. Weak teams like Kerala, Andhra, Assam, Orissa and Jammu & Kashmir had been given entries and the lop sided contests had led to tremendous imbalance. Bombay had dominated in the Ranji Trophy, winning the trophy 12 times in 27 years while several other areas had not yet developed enough. Spectator interest too in the premier national competition had dwindled. Even while moves were afoot to make the Ranji Trophy more attractive and competitive, the BCCI conceived the idea of a zonal tournament to be played on a knock out basis between the five zones. Initially the Bombay Cricket Association had the idea of staging the tournament annually, as a sort of revival of the famous Pentangular of old. But Chidambaram was of the view that the tournament should be played at different venues.

The tournament as only to be expected was an instant success. In its first year, spectators thronged the stadia to watch the initial games at Madras, Baroda and Bombay. The final at Bombay was well attended, a fitting tribute to the man in whose name the trophy was named. It was held early in the season and did not interfere with the conduct of the Ranji Trophy in any way. Rather, the two tournaments complemented each other. The knock out games of the National competition continued to throw up some talent but it was the Duleep Trophy which sifted this talent out, processed it and presented it before the public in a more attractive manner. The standards were incontestably higher and there was little doubt that the tournament was good for Indian cricket. The selectors got enough evidence of the form guide to help them pick the Indian team to play England in the 1961-62 series.

In its formative years itself, the Duleep Trophy outgrew the Ranji Trophy in popularity and prestige. Certainly it also played its part in bettering the standard of Indian cricket and in its own way was responsible for the Indian team faring better during the decade. In the first decade, the tournament helped uncover the talents of players like Milkha Singh, Ajit Wadekar, Abid Ali, V.Subramanyam, Venkatraghavan and Bedi while resurrecting the careers of Jaisimha and Durrani. And in the 70s, Ramnath Parkar, Parthasarathy Sharma, Brijesh Patel, the Amarnath brothers, TE Srinivasan and Kapil Dev were discovered thanks to their sterling performances in the competition. In the 80s, the Duleep Trophy helped unearth gifted players like L Sivaramakrishnan, K Srikkanth, Maninder Singh, WV Raman, TA Sekhar, Kiran More and Raman Lamba.

For the first decade, the dominant teams were West Zone and South Zone. It was not until 1971-72 that a third team, Central Zone, got its hands on the trophy. Their triumph was shaped by a superlative performance by that wayward genius Salim Durrani who pulled in his weight with both bat and ball in such a telling manner that it was loosely said the trophy should be renamed `Durrani Trophy'.

By the early 70s North Zone had shown that they were ready for the big time, thanks in the main to Bedi's shrewd generalship. North Zone won the trophy for the first time in 1973-74 and over the next 25 years they have replaced West and South as the dominant team, including a spell of five years at the top in the early and mid 90s. In the last two decades, the rivalry between North zone and West zone has been intense and has led to some memorable contests. However it has also had its seamy moments, most ignobly at Jamshedpur during the 1990-91 final. The rivalry between some of the players had crossed the cricketing limit and the nadir was reached when batsman Raman Lamba of North Zone and bowler Rashid Patel of West Zone `needled' each other, culminating in an angry Patel charging at Lamba with a stump. The photograph showing Lamba defending himself with a bat against the charging Patel took its place as one of the most infamous pictures in cricket history. The result was a crowd riot and punishment by way of a suspension for both players.

However, over the last decade or so, the Duleep Trophy has lost much of the glamour and prestige associated with it earlier. It retained its importance even as it remained a sort of selection trial to pick the Indian team. But over the years, many of the leading cricketers were not in a position to play in the competition. Chiefly this was because of the overcrowded international calendar. With Test matches and one day internationals being played virtually round the year, it became difficult for the BCCI to fit in the Duleep Trophy in such a way that the top players could take part. Sometimes this was achieved but then the attitude of the stars left much to be desired. Also some of the contests became meaningless as many of the matches were played on flat tracks leading to record totals in the region of 700 and 800 and batsmen running up double centuries and even a triple century.

The 39th edition of the Duleep Trophy to be played in the East Zone from Wednesday will again be conducted sans many popular stars, with the Indian team currently in Australia. But there are still many crowd pullers, led by former Indian captain Md Azharuddin. And many young players in the zonal sides have already performed well in the Ranji Trophy matches so far. Also, the fact that centres like Agartala and Guwahati will host two of the games should guarantee a full house. Central Zone are the holders but South Zone and North Zone look strong contenders. However they meet in the quarterfinal at Agartala from December 1. The winner will play Central at Guwahati in one semifinal while East and West meet in the other semifinal at Calcutta from December 9 to 13. The final will be played at Calcutta from December 17.

© CricInfo