Mumbai to open Ranji defence against TN at Lahli

Mumbai will begin their Ranji Trophy title defence against Tamil Nadu in Lahli from October 6-9. The Board of Control for Cricket in India announced the 2016-17 domestic fixtures on Friday with all the Ranji Trophy being played at neutral venues.

Mumbai have been placed in Group A along with Baroda, Punjab, MPCA, Bengal, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Railways and UPCA.

Runners-up Saurashtra are in the nine-team Group B while BCCI's latest member, Chattisgarh is in Group C as the 10th team. Chattisgarh will make their Ranji debut against Tripura at Ranchi.

The Ranji Trophy league matches end on December 10 followed by the quarterfinals (December 17-21), semifinals (December 27-31) and the final (January 7-11, 2017). The Irani Cup between Ranji Trophy champions and Rest of India will be played from January 18-22, 2017.

Mumbai will host the newly-proposed T20 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy inter-zonal matches from February 12-18, 2017 after the league matches are being held from January 29-February 5.

The Vijay Hazare All-India One-day limited-overs knockout tournament will be held from March 13-18, 2017 at a venue to be decided by North Zone. Prior to this, the inter-state one-dayers will be held between February 25-March 6. Twenty eight teams will be split into four groups of seven each and play each other once. Delhi, Odisha, Chennai and Kolkata are the venues for each of the four groups. The top two teams from each group will make the knockouts.