The Ranji Trophy Plate Group is back for another season. Six teams are fighting hard to reach the top spot and grab promotion to the Elite Group.
Bihar started strong with their first win, putting them at number one right now. But it’s still early days. The other five teams, which are Manipur, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Arunachal Pradesh, are waiting for their chances.
Every match matters because only the top two teams will face off in the final. These teams know what’s at stake. Win and you move up. Lose and you stay where you are. The competition pushes players to give everything they have on the field.
Follow this points table to keep up with one of the most defining tournaments of the Indian domestic cricket environment.
Ranji Trophy Plate 2025-26: Live Update Points Table
The Plate Group works differently from the Elite Group. Six teams play each other once in a round-robin format. That means each team gets five matches to prove itself. When you win, you get six points.
But there’s a bonus point if you win by an innings or by 10 wickets, making it seven in total. When the match ends in a draw, the team that leads in the first innings gets three points.
The other team walks away with just one point. This points system keeps things interesting because even draws can swing the table around.
| Rank | Team | P | W | L | NR | Pts | NRR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manipur | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 20 | +0.201 |
| 2 | Bihar | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 16 | +0.274 |
| 3 | Sikkim | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 15 | +1.495 |
| 4 | Meghalaya | 5 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 15 | +1.017 |
| 5 | Mizoram | 5 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 9 | +0.563 |
| 6 | Arunachal Pradesh | 5 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | +0.177 |
Bihar sits pretty at the top after crushing Arunachal Pradesh. They won big, beating Arunachal Pradesh by an innings and 165 runs. That kind of victory sends a message to every other team.
Ranji Trophy Plate 2025-26 Timeline
The Ranji Trophy Plate 2025-26 kicked off on October 15, 2025. The matches will keep going until January 26, 2026.
The BCCI schedules multiple matches on the same day across different venues. This setup means cricket fans can follow several games at once, though it can get tricky keeping track of everything happening.
The tournament takes breaks for other domestic competitions like the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and Vijay Hazare Trophy.
Ranji Trophy Plate: Past 5 Years Winner
Looking back at the last five Plate Group winners shows us which teams have been climbing up. Bihar won last season, beating Manipur in the final under captain Ashutosh Aman’s leadership.
Before that, Meghalaya dominated two years straight, and with squad changes and reshuffled groups happening every season, the Ranji Trophy 2025–26 teams list gives better context to how the competition landscape looks now.
| Year | Winner | Runner-up | Winning Captain |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | Bihar | Manipur | Ashutosh Aman |
| 2023-24 | Meghalaya | Sikkim | Raj Biswa |
| 2022-23 | Meghalaya | Sikkim | Raj Biswa |
| 2021-22 | Nagaland | Meghalaya | Rongsen Jonathan |
| 2019-20 | Goa | Pondicherry | Amit Verma |
Bihar’s journey has been something special. After getting reinstated by the BCCI in 2018, they worked their way up through the Plate Group. Last season, captain Ashutosh Aman led them to their first Plate title.
He’s the same bowler who once broke records with 68 wickets in a season back in 2018-19. Their win last year earned them promotion to the Elite Group, though they were relegated again for this season.
Meghalaya had a great run in 2022-23 and 2023-24. Captain Raj Biswa brought home two titles in a row, both times defeating Sikkim.
Kishan Lyngdoh, their standout batter, scored heavily during those seasons, including the first double century by a Meghalaya player. Akash Kumar Choudhury was their bowling star, picking up wickets when it mattered most.
Nagaland surprised everyone in 2021-22. Captain Rongsen Jonathan, a powerful all-rounder, guided his team to the title by beating Meghalaya in the final.
Jonathan had earlier made history by becoming the first player from the Northeast to score a double hundred in the Ranji Trophy.
Goa won it back in 2019-20 before Covid hit. Under Amit Verma’s captaincy, they beat Pondicherry to take the trophy home. That was the last Plate final before the pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2020-21 season.
The Plate Group has become a stepping stone for smaller cricket states. These teams don’t have the infrastructure or resources that Mumbai or Karnataka enjoy, but they’re producing players who can compete.
Manipur has reached two finals in recent years. Sikkim keeps pushing hard, reaching back-to-back finals. Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram are still building their teams, but they’re learning with each season.
The quotient system decides rankings when teams are level on points. It looks at runs scored per wicket lost versus runs conceded per wicket taken.
Bihar’s quotient of 3.195 shows how dominant they were in their opening match. Manipur’s 0.854 quotient tells us they held their ground in their draw. Arunachal Pradesh’s low quotient reflects its heavy loss.
This season, Bihar is the team everyone’s watching. They came back down from the Elite Group hungry to return. Their bowling attack is strong, and their batting lineup knows how to build big scores.
Last match, they piled up 542 runs before declaring, then bowled out Arunachal twice cheaply.
Conclusion: Ranji Trophy Plate 2025-26 Is Pushing Indian Domestic Cricketers To Do Better
The Plate Group is quietly building something real for Indian cricket. Kids from Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh are learning to bat for entire days. They’re figuring out how to bowl 30 overs in a heat that doesn’t quit.
Most of them won’t play for India. Some won’t even make it past this level. But for a 22-year-old from Manipur facing his first red-ball season, this tournament is everything. Win enough matches and suddenly you’re lining up against Karnataka next year.
That possibility changes things. Back in 2018, the BCCI let six new teams into first-class cricket.
Now those states have players who grew up watching Dhoni and Kohli, thinking maybe they could do something similar. The grounds are getting better. Coaches are showing up. It’s slow work, but it’s real.
FAQs
The top four teams from the round-robin stage qualify for the semi-finals. These four teams are ranked based on total points accumulated during league matches. The winners from both semi-finals then advance to play the Plate Group final.
The two finalists get promoted to the Elite Group for the following season. This means they play against stronger teams, gaining exposure and experience at a higher level of domestic cricket.
Several players represented Plate teams before moving up. Tilak Varma played for Hyderabad when they were in the Plate Group. Many young talents from the Northeast states are now getting noticed by IPL scouts through Plate matches.
The Plate Group has its own championship. Winners get promoted to the Elite Group for next season, where they can then compete for the main Ranji Trophy if they perform well enough.
Each team plays five league matches against the other five teams in a round-robin format. The top four then play knockout matches, which are two semi-finals and one final for championship contenders.
