International Cricket Stadium, Dhurwa

Ranchi, April 9: After Indian Premier League and its poor cousin Jharkhand Premier League, now it is time for Ranchi Premier League (RPL).

The tournament committee of Ranchi District Cricket Association (RDCA) today decided to replace the year-old block-level and two-year-old inter-ward T20 cricket tournament with RPL from this season to promote cricketers from blocks and wards.

“We will send teams of selectors to clusters of four or five blocks so that four teams are selected from the blocks. Likewise, the wards will be divided into clusters to form eight teams. Thus, a total of 12 teams, eight from the urban and four from the rural areas, will play in RPL,” said RDCA secretary Sunil Singh

These teams will be divided into two groups of six teams each.

Earlier, 18 blocks had participated in the inter-block T20 cricket tournament and 16 wards in the inter-ward T20 cricket tournament.

“The RPL format is being introduced to maintain quality. While organising the block and ward cricket tourneys, we found that some players represented both the wards and block teams. Hopefully, the RPL will remove this anomaly,” Singh added.

The committee, which met at the Jharkhand State Cricket Association’s International Stadium at Dhurwa today, also decided to complete the finals of all the tournaments conducted by the body by the end of April.