The Indian cricket board on Saturday decided to permit players from international board to participate in its first-class domestic championship starting this year.
Since the world wide response rose to unexpected heights for the DLF Indian premier league, the board secretary Niranjan Shah said in a press release that, "Four guest players are allowed to play in Ranji Trophy similar to T20 IPL held recently". He also says, "One among them could be a cricketer from foreign state who has played at least ten Tests and/or twenty one-day internationals."
The Ranji Trophy is the country's premier inter-state competition and a good performance here often makes a case for selection to the national squad. Former England batsman Denis Compton and West Indian pacer Roy Gilchrist had played in the Ranji Trophy during India's pre-independence period but the trend was done away with later on.
The BCCI had been mulling such a move for the past two years in the wake of dwindling spectator interest and almost negligible TV viewership.