Cricket fans win as social media backlash forces BCCI to live telecast Duleep Trophy final

For not telecasting the ongoing 2025 Duleep Trophy quarterfinals, the BCCI faced plenty of flak on social media, with the fans bashing the Indian Cricket Board for not honouring the premier domestic tournament as much as they claim they do. However, in the latest development, the BCCI has promised to live telecast the Duleep Trophy final, scheduled (September 11-15) at the Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Bengaluru.

"There will be a live telecast of the final of the Duleep Trophy. We have an agreement with our broadcaster to ensure live telecast of 100 days of domestic cricket, which means that all our domestic tournaments are covered live. The BCCI gives utmost importance to domestic cricket, which is why you will see that almost all the India players are in action in these matches," BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia said in a chat with the Times of India (TOI) on Sunday (Aug 31).

The Indian cricket fans were looking forward to watching the Duleep Trophy quarters, which began with North Zone playing East Zone and Central Delhi taking on North East Zone, both games starting on Thursday (Aug 28). Deprived of watching top-level cricket since the conclusion of India’s away tour of England, the countless fans took to social media to bash the BCCI for not telecasting Duleep Trophy games across any platform.

Meanwhile, this edition of the Duleep Trophy, featuring several A-listers, marks the return to the traditional zonal format after last year’s switch to India A, B, C and D teams. Besides, this tournament also sees BCCI carrying out its ‘serious substitution rule’ trials, where players who suffer injuries during the game are substituted with players of similar attributes, like in the case of a concussion.

The board, however, ensured that the fans had live access to all Duleep Trophy games last year, held in Anantapur and Bengaluru.