India is perhaps the strongest Test team going around. It wouldn’t have been possible without a robust domestic cricket structure back home.
It’s pretty vast. There are just so many tournaments where new talent is born season after season.
The Duleep Trophy is one such tournament where we get to see future Indian stars. This first-class tournament provides a competitive platform for the finest red-ball cricketers from the country.
But how does the tournament work? And how many teams participate in it? (Find out how the trophy got its name here.)
Duleep Trophy: Participating Teams
The number of participating teams in the Duleep Trophy has varied over the years. In general, we have seen five or six teams fight for the trophy.
As of now, six zonal teams make up the roster. The zonal teams draw players from the state teams under their region.
Here’s every zonal team, with their regional breakup:
East Zone: Assam, Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Tripura
Central Zone: Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Railways, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Vidarbha
North East Zone: Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim
North Zone: Chandigarh, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Services
South Zone: Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Hyderabad, Karnataka, Kerala, Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu
West Zone: Baroda, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Mumbai, Saurashtra
While these are the current teams, many others have featured in the tournament’s history. Even foreign teams played on invitation in the early 2000s.
Here are the old teams that played in the Duleep Trophy:
| Team | Span |
|---|---|
| Ranji Trophy Elite Group A | 2002/03 |
| Ranji Trophy Elite Group B | 2002/03 |
| Ranji Trophy Elite Group C | 2002/03 |
| Ranji Trophy Plate Group A | 2002/03 |
| Ranji Trophy Plate Group B | 2002/03 |
| England A | 2003/04 |
| Bangladesh Board XI | 2004/05 |
| Zimbabwe Board XI | 2005/06 |
| Sri Lanka A | 2006/07 |
| England Lions | 2007/08 |
| India Blue | 2016/17 – 2019/20 |
| India Green | 2016/17 – 2019/20 |
| India Red | 2016/17 – 2019/20 |
| India A | 2024/25 |
| India B | 2024/25 |
| India C | 2024/25 |
| India D | 2024/25 |
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Duleep Trophy: Format
Like the number of teams, the format of the Duleep Trophy has been tweaked a lot.
Here’s a timeline of the format changes:
1961/62 – 1992/93: Knockout format with five zonal teams
1993/94 – 1995/96: Round-robin format without a final among five zonal teams
1996/97 – 1999/2000: Back to knockouts
2000/01 – 2002/03: Round-robin format in place (no final)
2003/04 – 2014/15: Knockout format
2016/17 – 2019/20: Round-robin format between three teams (Blue, Green, and Red), followed by a final. The first three seasons featured day-night fixtures with pink balls.
2022/23 – 2023: Knockout format with six zonal teams
2024-25: Round-robin format between four teams (A, B, C, and D), followed by a final
2025-26: Reverted to the traditional knockout and zonal format
Now let’s see how the knockout format works in the Duleep Trophy.
So the six-team tournament features two quarter-finals, as many semi-finals, and the final. Four of the six teams first appear in the quarter-finals. The other two teams already occupy a spot in the semi-finals.
The remaining semi-final spots are filled by the two quarter-final winners. Then the four semi-finalists tussle for the two final berths. And the semi-final winners then have a shot at winning the Duleep Trophy.
Notably, the quarter-finals and semi-finals have four days of scheduled play. And the final spans over five days, similar to a Test match.
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