Organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 competition will kickstart India's senior men’s 2023-24 domestic season. In the tournament, a total 38 number of teams will participate and will be divided into five elite groups with eight teams each in Groups A, B and C and seven in Groups D and E.
Group A: Baroda, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Hyderabad, Jammu & Kashmir, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Mumbai
Group B: Assam, Bihar, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Odisha, Services, Sikkim
Group C: Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Gujarat, Manipur, Punjab, Railways, Saurashtra
Group D: Bengal, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Vidarbha
Group E: Delhi, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Nagaland, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh
As per Indian Domestic T20 Trophy schedule, each team will take on the other sides from the same group once in the league stage fixtures.Two Preliminary Quarterfinals and four Quarterfinals will be followed by the 126 league games.
The team finishing on top in the five groups will enter the quarter-finals. They will be joined by the winners of the three preliminary quarter-finals.
The preliminary quarter-finals will be held between the runners-up of the five Groups and the side with the highest points during the group stage from all the remaining teams across all groups.
The teams winning the quarter-finals will qualify for the semis, and the winners will advance to the final, scheduled to be played on November 6 at Mohali.
In the 2022-23 edition, Mumbai won its first SMAT title after beating Himachal Pradesh by three wickets in the final. Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu is the most successful team in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy competition with three titles.
Indian Domestic T20 Trophy 2023 matches will be played in five cities - Jaipur, Mumbai, Ranchi, Mohali and Dehradun across 11 venues - with all the knockout matches set to be played in Mohali.
