Sunil Gavaskar has urged the BCCI to implement the Test cricket incentive scheme in the Ranji Trophy as well, saying it would encourage domestic players and look after the feeder system.
Earlier this month, the BCCI announced that those who play 75% of India's Tests in a season will earn INR 45 lakh per Test, and those who play 50 to 75% of Tests will earn INR 30 lakh. This is in addition to the match fee of INR 15 lakh.
"That is a wonderful thing by the BCCI to reward those who would be playing [Test cricket]," Gavaskar said on the sidelines of an event in Mumbai on Friday. "But I would also request the BCCI to ensure that the feeder to the Test team, which is the Ranji Trophy, is also looked after."
Currently, a player earns around INR 2 lakh per match in the Ranji Trophy. If he plays every match in the season and his team makes it to the final, he ends up with ten games. The match fee for the Vijay Hazare Trophy is INR 50,000, and for the Syed Mushtaq Ali INR 17,500.
"[If your team doesn't qualify for the knockouts], your whole year's earnings are around 20 lakh, which is like the base price in the IPL," a domestic player told ESPNcricinfo. "If there are proper contracts, then players will feel more motivated to play red-ball cricket."
Gavaskar said: "If the Ranji Trophy fee can be doubled or tripled, certainly there will be a lot more people playing the Ranji Trophy, [and a] lot less pullouts. They will all be wanting to play with the slab system - [if] every ten first-class matches you get that much more - so I would request the BCCI to look at that aspect as well."
Gavaskar also asked for a re-look at the short gap between Ranji matches, and suggested that the Ranji Trophy should be played from October to mid-December, and the domestic season should end with the 50-over Vijay Hazare Trophy so that it ties in smoothly with the IPL.
Currently, the Ranji Trophy is the last tournament in the domestic calendar. The 2023-24 season ended with the Ranji Trophy on March 15, with the IPL starting from March 22.
"That way, everybody will be available to play [the Ranji Trophy], except for the ones featuring for India," Gavaskar said. "There will be no real excuse to pull out. With the one-dayers beginning from January, people who are in the IPL can have enough practice from them."
Gavaskar also supported the BCCI's directive to players to prioritise domestic cricket.
"It is something that should be looked up [to] by every cricketer - domestic cricket is actually how they have come up," he said. "If they had not started at the domestic level, be it the domestic T20, the domestic one-day tournament or the Ranji Trophy, they wouldn't be where they are.
"Very few cricketers have actually come up from not having played domestic cricket. They always have played some domestic cricket - it could be junior cricket or Under-19 cricket or something like that. That is something the players should never forget."