Over the years, the Ranji Trophy has used myriad methods to break ties in knockout games.
The two quotient rules
You could hear the collective gasp at Eden Gardens when Pranab Roy fell on the last afternoon of the 1989/90 Ranji Trophy game. He and Arun Lal, former India Test openers, had scored hundreds and lifted Bengal from 1-1, but Roy had to go now after a mammoth stand. Snehasish Ganguly was due in next, but captain Sambaran Banerjee preferred Ashok Malhotra’s experience.
To anyone without an idea of the context, the tension would have felt bizarre. Bengal were, after all, 275-2 – and this was only the second innings of the game. There was no question of a result, so what was it about? To understand that, we need to go back a few decades.
There was a time when the cricket calendar could accommodate timeless matches. The only two first-class matches to produce 2,000 runs were both timeless Ranji Trophy knockout games in the 1940s, a decade when Indian cricket was characterised by record-breaking runfests.
Over time, as timeless matches became impossible and draws became inevitable, the Ranji Trophy began to reward first-innings leads. Even today, drawn knockout matches are decided based on first-innings leads, while in league games, the team in the lead gets three points and the opposition one.
But what if the team batting second neither gets bowled out nor takes the lead? The discussion made the rounds during the 2025/26 final after Jammu & Kashmir batted halfway through the third day, though an excellent show by their bowlers put an end to that. Over the years, however, the authorities have tried myriad methods.
Final, Karnataka vs Jammu and Kashmir
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After Karnataka amassed 705, Delhi were 543-6 at stumps on day five in the 1981/82 final, prompting the incorporation of a reserve day. Delhi became 589-6 on the sixth morning, but Rakesh Shukla and Rajesh Peter held on to clinch the trophy.
However, as one-day cricket crept into the calendar, schedules became tighter and reserve days were not feasible anymore. By 1989/90, the winner used to be decided by the “quotient” – runs per wicket in the first innings. For the match in question, Bombay’s first-innings score of 590-5 gave them a quotient of 118. Bengal, 137.5 at that point, were ahead ... but a wicket would mean a defeat unless they were 355 by then.
So Arun Lal and Malhotra, seasoned men both, defended a strong Bombay attack led by Ravi Shastri. When the stumps were drawn after a couple of agonising hours with close-in fielders prowling around the bat, Bengal were 312-2: the match had been “won”.
The quotient rule came into play yet again when rain restricted the final to a mere 164.2 overs. After bowling out Delhi for 279, Bengal – aided by 40 penalty runs (we shall come to these) – finished on 216-4, and that was that. The flaw in the rules were obvious by now: to win the final, all Bengal needed to score was 28-0 or even 28-1.
The rules changed the next year: in case of an unfinished first innings, the team with the best run rate would go through (for some reason, they still called it “quotient”). If anything, this was worse, for wickets were virtually out of the equation. Teams were often not compelled to bowl out an opposition: defensive bowling would suffice.
Yet again Bengal benefitted in the quarter-final – of course, with the aid of penalty runs. Four men (including Syed Kirmani and Rahul Dravid, whose Test debuts were separated by about two decades) scored hundreds Karnataka declared on 791-6, scored at 3.18.
All Bengal needed was to overtake that. After Shrikant Kalyani made 260, Snehasish – whose foot injury forced the doctor to strap his shoes to his pads, rendering him immobile – became impossible to dodge. Karnataka kept striking, but were not impressed by Snehasish’s many requests for medical treatment. These amounted to delays, and Karnataka ended up conceding 60 penalty runs (we promise to return to these) – at a whopping 12 runs an over.
Bolstered by these runs, Bengal finished on 652-9 at 3.26. Karnataka captain Kirmani’s words (“we were cheated”) formed the headlines of next day’s newspapers.
That rule was scrapped as well. Now, the team with the more points in the group stage is considered the winner.
When penalty runs were king
It is now time to turn to the penalty runs, a curious feature of Indian cricket in the 1980s and a few years on either side of it.
The Central Zone match of 1986/87 could have been celebrated for Rajasthan’s Pradeep Sunderam, whose 10-78 in the Vidarbha first innings were only the second 10-wicket haul in the Ranji Trophy. Instead, it is usually remembered for the result, and how it was achieved.
Vidarbha made 140 and 184, while Rajasthan scored 218 in the first innings. Each of the three innings was aided by 20 penalty runs (four an over back then). Chasing 107, Rajasthan were bowled out for 95 ... but now the scorers got together and calculated the penalties. The extra runs (yet again, 20) helped Rajasthan win by nine runs – a rare instance of the chasing side winning by runs in a first-class match.
The penalties persisted for a few years, though the magnitude changed over time. They also began to be awarded once per match (and not innings). In a South Zone clash in 1990/91, Hyderabad needed 255 in the fourth innings at a near-impossible rate. Risking penalty runs while slowing the game down, Andhra took 128 minutes to bowl 22 overs (they were required to bowl 23 in 63): Hyderabad reached 150, got 120 penalty runs (by then, the rates had soared), and won.
But even that number seems puny when pitted against that year’s quarter-final. After taking two wickets for three runs to eke out a one-run first-innings lead, Bombay amassed 719 in the third innings. Delhi responded with 371-4 – but that included a whopping 180 penalties.
The only other instance of a three-digit penalty in first-class cricket came in 1992/93. Despite conceding 106 in the third innings against Railways in 1992/93, Uttar Pradesh chased down 318 to win.
Penalty runs for over rates were introduced to the Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy, and Irani Cup in 1977/78. The rates varied over time and, towards the end, depended on formulae more complicated than simple multiplications. They were done away with after 1992/93.
