Mumbai’s new coach, Vinayak Samant has stated that he wants to prove himself in the upcoming Ranji season before gaining the confidence of the selectors and the management. Ideally, Samant wants a few changes in the squad (that played last year) which is not possible in his first year.

BCCI has announced that for the 2018-19 season, there will be nine new teams participating in the Ranji Trophy along with the existing 28. The announcement came on Wednesday as it was declared that Ranji Trophy would go back to Elite-Plate format with the nine newly added teams.

The BCCI has gone against the decision of CoA to induct Uttarakhand into the Ranji Trophy and has decided to adopt a wait and watch policy on giving the first-class status to Uttarakhand. However, the revised pay-structure of centrally-contracted players got the approval of the General Body.

The nine-member 'consensus committee’ has finally cleared Uttarakhand to be a part of this year’s Ranji Trophy league after a wait of almost 18 years. The five states of Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Manipur, Nagaland, and Meghalaya have also asked the SC to allow them to participate in the tournament.