The Indian cricket board on Saturday decided to permit players from international board to participate in its first-class domestic championship starting this year.
Sunil Gavaskar, Chairman of The technical committee BCCI, said state sides were now free to include one foreigner in their ranks for the Ranji Trophy contest.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.
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