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The Vijay Hazare Trophy is an annual List A cricket competition organized by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The tournament features the Indian States and Union territories teams taking part in the Ranji Trophy, India’s premier domestic competition. This tournament was initially played at a zonal level until the 2002–03 season as it was expanded into a national tournament. Since this expansion, Tamil Nadu have emerged as the most successful team, having won the title five times.
History
The Vijay Hazare Trophy started from 1983/84 was originally contested as a national under-19 tournament involving zonal teams until 2006/07. In 2007, the tournament was renamed the Ranji One Day Trophy. It was renamed the Vijay Hazare Trophy ahead of the 2007–08 season in honor of former India cricketer Vijay Hazare, who passed away in December 2004.
For the 2018/19 edition, the teams were divided into three elite groups and one plate group. The elite groups had nine or ten teams based on average points from the previous three editions of the tournament. The 2020/21 edition of the tournament faced a delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Who is Vijay Hazare?
Vijay Hazare, born on March 11, 1915, was a former Indian cricketer who captained the national side in 14 matches from 1951 to 1953. The Sangli-born cricketer passed away from intestinal cancer on December 18, 2004.
He led India to its first Test victory against England in 1951–52 at Madras (now Chennai). In 1996, he received the C. K. Nayudu Lifetime Achievement Award, the highest honour bestowed by BCCI on a former player.
He represented India as a right-handed batter and had a Test average of 47.65, scoring 2,192 runs in 30 matches. Additionally, he had an impressive batting average in first-class cricket- 58.38, with 60 centuries and 10 double centuries. He was also a right-hand medium-fast bowler, having taken 595 and 19 wickets in first-class cricket and Tests, respectively. He was the leading run-scorer in the 1939–40 Ranji Trophy season and helped Maharashtra win their maiden title. He also played a key role in their victory in 1940–41 scoring a century in the final.
Records
- First Indian batter to score a triple century in first-class cricket
- Scored two triple centuries: 316 not out in 1939–40 for Maharashtra against Poona and 309 in 1943–44 The Rest against The Hindus at Bombay
- First Indian to score hundreds in both innings of a Test (116 and 145 against Australia in 1947–48 in Adelaide)
- Holds an unwanted record for scoring a pair (a duck in both innings) against England in 1951–52
- First Indian player to score a century in three Test matches in a row
- First Indian to reach 50 centuries in first-class cricket
- Set the record for the highest partnership in first-class cricket (577 runs) with Gul Mahomed for Baroda against Holkar in the Ranji Trophy final at Baroda in 1947
- First Indian player to complete 1000 runs in Test cricket
Format
In the tournament, each team in a group plays every other team one time. The five winners and the best-performing runner-up team advance to the quarter-finals, while the remaining four runners-up compete in the preliminary quarter-finals. The two winners from these pre-quarter-finals join the six teams that have earned direct qualification in the quarter-finals.
From the 2015–16 to 2017–18 seasons, the zonal groups were replaced with four groups, consisting of seven teams each. As of the 2023–24 season, there are a total of 38 teams participating in the tournament which is divided into five groups labeled A to E.
| Group | Teams |
| A | Kerala, Mumbai, Odisha, Pondicherry, Railways, Saurashtra, Sikkim, Tripura |
| B | Chhattisgarh, Hyderabad, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalanya, Services. Vidarbha |
| C | Bihar, Chandigarh, Delhi, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Mizoram, Uttarakhand |
| D | Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh |
| E | Baroda, Bengal, Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Nagaland, Punjab, Tamil Nadu |
Zonal tournaments
No finals took place from the tournament’s inaugural season as the Ranji One Day Trophy in 1993–94 until the 2001–02 season. All the teams competed solely within their zones and there were no national champions being declared.
Here is the list of the winners for each zone by year. The most successful teams during this zonal phase were Bombay/Mumbai (8 titles), Bengal (6), and Karnataka, Punjab, and Tamil Nadu, each having 4 titles.
| Edition | Zone winners | ||||
| Central | East | North | South | West | |
| 1993–94 | Uttar Pradesh | Bengal | Haryana | Karnataka | Bombay |
| 1994–95 | Madhya Pradesh | Bengal | Punjab | Hyderabad | Maharashtra |
| 1995–96 | Uttar Pradesh | Bengal | Haryana | Karnataka | Bombay |
| 1996–97 | Madhya Pradesh | Assam | Delhi | Tamil Nadu | Mumbai |
| 1997–98 | Madhya Pradesh | Bengal | Delhi | Tamil Nadu | Mumbai |
| 1998–99 | Madhya Pradesh | Bengal | Punjab | Karnataka | Mumbai |
| 1999–2000 | Madhya Pradesh | Bengal | Delhi | Tamil Nadu | Mumbai |
| 2000–01 | Madhya Pradesh | Orissa | Punjab | Tamil Nadu | Mumbai |
| 2001–02 | Railways | Orissa | Punjab | Karnataka | Mumbai |
National tournaments
In the 2002–03 and 2003–04 seasons, BCCI introduced a final round-robin stage for the top teams from each zone. Starting from the 2004–05 edition, a playoff format with semi-finals and a final has been executed. The tournament continued to be called the Ranji One Day Trophy until the 2006–07 season. It was renamed the Vijay Hazare Trophy ahead of the 2007–08 season.
Haryana are the defending champions after defeating Rajasthan in the 2023-24 Vijay Hazare Trophy final.
| Edition | Final host | Winner | Runner-up |
| 2002–03 | No final | Tamil Nadu | Punjab |
| 2003–04 | No final | Mumbai | Bengal |
| 2004–05 | Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai | Shared: Tamil Nadu (2)and Uttar Pradesh | |
| 2005–06 | Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai | Railways | Uttar Pradesh |
| 2006–07 | Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur | Mumbai (2) | Rajasthan |
| 2007–08 | Dr. Y. S. Rajashekar Reddy ACA–VDCA Cricket Stadium, Visakhapatnam | Saurashtra | Bengal (2) |
| 2008–09 | Maharaja Bir Bikram College Stadium, Agartala | Tamil Nadu (3) | Bengal (3) |
| 2009–10 | Sardar Patel Stadium, Ahmedabad | Tamil Nadu (4) | Bengal (4) |
| 2010–11 | Holkar Stadium, Indore | Jharkhand | Gujarat |
| 2011–12 | Feroz Shah Kotla Ground, Delhi | Bengal | Mumbai |
| 2012–13 | Dr. Y. S. Rajashekar Reddy ACA–VDCA Cricket Stadium, Visakhapatnam | Delhi | Assam |
| 2013–14 | Eden Gardens, Kolkata | Karnataka | Railways |
| 2014–15 | Sardar Patel Stadium, Ahmedabad | Karnataka (2) | Punjab (2) |
| 2015–16 | M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore | Gujarat | Delhi |
| 2016–17 | Feroz Shah Kotla Ground, Delhi | Tamil Nadu (5) | Bengal (5) |
| 2017–18 | Feroz Shah Kotla Ground, Delhi | Karnataka (3) | Saurashtra |
| 2018–19 | M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore | Mumbai (3) | Delhi (2) |
| 2019–20 | M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore | Karnataka (4) | Tamil Nadu |
| 2020–21 | Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi | Mumbai (4) | Uttar Pradesh (2) |
| 2021–22 | Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur | Himachal Pradesh | Tamil Nadu (2) |
| 2022–23 | Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad | Saurashtra (2) | Maharashtra |
| 2023–24 | Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium, Rajkot | Haryana | Rajasthan (2) |
Tournament records
Most runs
| Player | Team | Years | Runs |
| Ankit Bawne | Maharashtra | 2009-2023 | 3,635 |
| Dinesh Karthik | Tamil Nadu | 2008-2023 | 3,433 |
| Manish Pandey | Karnataka | 2008-2023 | 3,403 |
| Priyank Panchal | Gujarat | 2008-2023 | 3,395 |
| Ganesh Satish | Karnataka/Tripura/Vidarbha | 2008-2023 | 3,210 |
Most wickets
| Player | Team | Years | Wickets |
| Siddarth Kaul | Punjab | 2009-2023 | 155 |
| Piyush Chawla | Gujarat/Uttar Pradesh | 2009-2023 | 137 |
| Rahul Shukla | Jharkhand | 2009-2022 | 124 |
| Rishi Dhawan | Himachal Pradesh | 2008-2023 | 122 |
| Shahbaz Nadeem | Jharkhand | 2008-2023 | 118 |
Most runs in a series
| Player | Team | Season | Runs |
| Narayan Jagadeesan | Tamil Nadu | 2022-23 | 830 |
| Prithvi Shaw | Mumbai | 2020-21 | 827 |
| Devdutt Padikkal | Karnataka | 2020-21 | 737 |
| Mayank Agarwal | Karnataka | 2017-18 | 723 |
| Ruturaj Gaikwad | Maharashtra | 2022-23 | 660 |
