Meghalaya change entire XI for Nagaland clash

In the Plate Group of the 2026/27 Ranji Trophy, Meghalaya had secured first-innings leads against Sikkim and Mizoram, and won a thriller against Manipur by three runs. Despite their unbeaten run, they changed their entire XI for their fourth game of the season, against Nagaland at Shillong. Former Punjab and Uttarakhand cricketer Jiwanjot Singh led them, while Josiah Momin and Manish Sharma made their first-class debuts.

According to a report in the Highland Post, this was the outcome of a dispute between Meghalaya Cricket Association president James PK Sangma and the rest of his Apex Council. The players from the Apex Council team waited outside the ground as Sangma’s team took the field. This happened because a High Court of Meghalaya verdict had deemed the existing team as “illegal”.

Before that order, the teams chosen by the Apex Council (including the U23 men’s and women’s teams) had been recognised by the BCCI. The same cricketers had played for Meghalaya in the first three games.

“It is the selection committee that will make the decision on the players, I won’t get involved in that,” Sangma told Highland Post. “We have players who love the sport and for whom this is also a livelihood, so it is unfortunate that they have to go through all of this.”

According to Meghalaya coach Neetesh Sharma, “the players are feeling utterly dejected but we didn’t want to create a scene ... they call us illegal but this is a failure of the administration, not the fault of the boys.”

The Shillong Times did not mince their words in their piece on the same incident, calling it “an appalling exhibition of administrative arrogance that reduces domestic sport to personal fiefdom” and “an institutional coup carried out at the expense of young athletes who have poured sweat and blood into the domestic circuit”.

As for the match, Meghalaya conceded a 120-run first-innings lead but reduced Nagaland to 20-2 in the second at the time of writing.

Changing an entire XI during a cricket series or tournament, while rare, is not unprecedented. The most famous incident took place during the 1884/85 Ashes, when the entire Australian XI from the first Test refused to play in the second over a payment dispute, forcing the board to make 11 changes, including nine debutants.

Meghalaya XI v Mizoram, Nadiad, October 26-29

Kishan Lyngdoh (c), Arpit Bhatewara (wk), Kevin Christopher, Ajay Duhan, Rahul Dalal, Swastic Chettri, Jaskirat Singh Sachdeva, Bipin Ray, Ram Gurung, Aryan Bora, Abhishek Kumar.

Meghalaya XI v Nagaland, Shillong, November 2-5 (ongoing)

Jiwanjot Singh (c), Srinivas Sharath (wk), Raj Biswa, Bamanbha Shangpliang, Josiah Momin, Akshay Karnewar, Swarajeet Das, Dippu Sangma, Akash Choudhary, Manish Sharma, Nafees Siddique.

Image courtesy: DD News Meghalaya/Instagram

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