Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2020/21: Format, players, fixtures and streaming

The Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2020/21, the 13th edition of the tournament, will begin on Sunday, January 21. Here’s everything you need to know about India’s domestic T20 competition.

The Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, named after the former India Test cricketer, Mushtaq Ali, is India’s inter-state T20 competition organized by the BCCI. The first edition was played back in 2006/07 and was won by Tamil Nadu with Punjab finishing runners-up.

Competition format

The 38 teams have been divided into five Elite groups, namely A, B, C, D, E comprising of six teams each, and one Plate group with eight teams. Each team will face the other teams from the group once and the top two from each group will make it to the knock-outs.

The group-matches will be played across six cities – one allotted for each group, while the knockouts and the final will be played at the newly constructed Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad.

Here’s how the groups have been divided, along with the host cities:

Elite Group A

Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Railways, Tripura

All matches will be played in Bangalore

Elite Group B

Odisha, Bengal, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Hyderabad

All matches will be played in Kolkata

Elite Group C

Gujarat, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Baroda, Uttarakhand

All matches will be played in Vadodara

Elite Group D

Services, Saurashtra, Vidarbha, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Goa

All matches will be played in Indore

Elite Group E

Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Mumbai, Kerala, Puducherry

All matches will be played in Mumbai

Plate Group

Chandigarh, Meghalaya, Bihar, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh

All matches will be played in Chennai

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Who are the players featuring in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2020/21?

The competition features some of India’s prominent international cricketers including Ambati Rayudu, Karun Nair, Krunal Pandya among others.

The complete squad lists will be announced soon.

[caption id=”attachment_190154″ align=”alignnone” width=”800″] Karun Nair will lead defending champions Karnataka during the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2020/21[/caption]

Fixtures

The tournament was originally scheduled to be held between November 19, 2020 and December 7, 2020, before being postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The tournament will now commence on Sunday, January 10, with each group playing in bio-secure bubbles. The knockouts will begin on January 26 with the final scheduled on January 31.

The complete schedule will be out soon.