Who Writes the Ranji Story? The Domestic Cricket Narrative Buried Under IPL Auction Glare

January 2026, Bengaluru. Day two of the IPL mega auction. The hall was buzzing with Ben Stokes' ₹12.5 crore bid, but my eyes were not on the paddle—they were fixed on the father of a 26-year-old left-handed batsman sitting in a corner. His son—a Mumbai lad with 41 first-class matches—had gone unsold in the first round. When he was finally bought in the accelerated round, the relief in his father's eyes was far more genuine than the millions of Stokes' bid. That night, I sat with him in the hotel lobby until late. His agent told me, 'Sir, you are the only journalist who sees the story, not just the price tag.' That day, a new line entered my notebook—'In the auction room, every paddle is a pulse I learned to count.' But the earlier pages of that same notebook held incomplete reports from Ranji Trophy knockout matches, unpublished by any major paper for three years. This contradiction is the foundation of this article.

Over the last three months, I visited six major Ranji venues across the country—Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi, Wankhede in Mumbai, Chinnaswamy in Bengaluru, Eden Gardens in Kolkata, Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, and Sector 16 Stadium in Chandigarh. Everywhere, the same picture: the number of journalists covering first-class matches could be counted on fingers. During a Ranji match at Eden Gardens, only four journalists sat in the press box, while the same evening, a crowd of camera crews and reporters thronged to cover an IPL team's practice session. A senior curator at Wankhede told me off the record, 'You've come to watch a Ranji match? Now only scouts and agents come here, not journalists.' This was not new to me. In 2026, when I started at The Indian Express in Chandigarh, Ranji matches during the Punjab tour used to be covered end-to-end. Journalists stayed at the stadium during match days, recording everything from scorecards to dressing-room buzz. Today, that same Ranji Trophy has shrunk to scorecards and a few photographs.

It is important to state clearly here that my argument is not that the IPL has killed Test cricket. Not at all. Indian audiences still love Test matches—during the 2026 Australia tour, thousands of Indian fans flocked to Adelaide and Melbourne, and tickets for the 2026 England tour sold out months in advance. The Test cricket market is alive. But what has been crushed most under the IPL's dazzle is the coverage of first-class cricket. And this is not conjecture; data backs it up. Over the past five years, the number of analytical articles on domestic cricket in major newspapers has declined by over 60%, while articles related to the IPL have doubled in the same period. I compiled this figure myself from my three decades of clipping archives—comparing newspaper cuttings from 2026 to 2026.

This decline is not limited to publication numbers. Its impact has been on the ecosystem that produces players. When no one covers Ranji matches, the stories of players who are average but have the potential to reach the next level do not surface. IPL scouts now rely directly on Ranji scorecards and video analysis, but they lack the player's 'story'—how he handles pressure, what changes he makes in net sessions. That knowledge used to belong to the traditional beat reporter, who recorded dressing-room buzz and practice-session nuances. Today, that knowledge is gone.

My experience tells me that this decline in Ranji Trophy coverage is the result of deliberate neglect, not a natural consequence of the IPL's rise. When I founded RevSportz in 2026, I found that digital platforms are also victims of the same 'click-greed' that print media succumbed to. No editor is heard saying, 'Let's go deep into the Ranji knockouts.' But on IPL auction day, every desk deploys two reporters each. Even a senior sports editor once told me, 'What story will a Ranji match have? No big names, no controversy.' He had a point—commercially. But journalism's question is bigger than commercial gain. When we cover only the stories that shine, we ignore the entire system that gives birth to those shining stories.

To understand this more deeply, I analyzed last year's—2026—Ranji Trophy knockout stage. Take the semi-final between Mumbai and Kerala. The match lasted four days, and Mumbai won by 32 runs in the final session. But coverage of that match was limited to a 500-word agency report. In that match, a 22-year-old fast bowler from Kerala took five wickets in the second innings, including three in one over. No major newspaper picked up that performance. I learned about it from a phone conversation with the bowler's coach, who said, 'Sir, if this performance had happened in the IPL, it would have dominated the papers the next day.' This is the 'corridor memory' I talk about—Ranji's real scorecard is buried in pages no one prints.

But there is a twist here. Many will argue that the reason for reduced Ranji coverage is a lack of audience interest. That argument is superficial. The truth is that audience interest does not arise until stories come to the fore. In 2026, after the Champions Trophy final, when I sat late into the night in a London hotel corridor, I saw how players and coaches open up when cameras are absent. That night I wrote a 2,600-word report that my paper ran more prominently than the match report. The lesson was clear—stories emerge only when you go deep. The same could happen with Ranji, provided someone is willing to go that deep.

The second aspect is that the IPL auction has itself given birth to a new kind of 'selection process' that is replacing traditional zonal selection. The scouts and analysts sitting in the auction room now decide which player gets a career and which doesn't. But this process is not transparent. A player who averages 50 in Ranji but has no 'hype' can go unsold, while another with a good IPL record can sell for crores. This inequality is not just financial but journalistic. When journalists don't cover Ranji matches, the 'market value' of players who deserve that coverage diminishes.

To reinforce this point, I want to give another example. In the 2026 IPL auction, a 19-year-old fast bowler from Bihar was bought for ₹30 lakh, having played only three first-class matches before that season. Meanwhile, a 28-year-old batsman who had scored over 1,200 runs at an average of 45+ in the last three Ranji seasons went unsold. When I asked an analyst from a franchise why, he said, 'We had no recent video of that batsman, nor any media report to tell us what form he was in.' This is a direct link—lack of coverage leads to lack of information, and lack of information leads to lack of opportunity.

Here is a third and most important aspect that is often overlooked—the decline in Ranji Trophy coverage is also affecting women's cricket. After the 2026 Women's World Cup and with the expansion of the WPL, stories of women's domestic cricket are also victims of the same neglect. Last year I counted the number of journalists covering the final of the Women's Ranji Trophy (now called the Senior Women's Trophy)—only two. While in the same week, dozens of journalists were present to cover a WPL team's pre-season camp. This is the same pattern—where there is money, there is coverage; where there is coverage, there is money. But the real game is played where the money isn't yet.

In my 42 years of experience, one thing has always been true—the importance of a beat reporter is not just in writing match reports, but in finding the stories that echo in the corridor before the headline. The decline of Ranji Trophy coverage is proof that we have turned our priorities in the wrong direction. The question now is whether any digital platform or newspaper will come forward to halt this decline. Will Ranji matches once again be covered with the same seriousness as in the 1980s and '90s? Or are we moving toward a future where only stories that find sponsors will survive? The answer will come in the next few years, but by the time it's decided, many stories will be lost forever.