Affairs in Hyderabad Cricket Association go haywire

Hyderabad: Life’s a drag in the Hyderabad Cricket Association. The ruling body have been dragging their feet over conducting elections. The rival group dragged them to court over the issue. Now, the cricketers are caught in a dragnet.

The uproar over the current committee overstaying in office notwithstanding, the HCA has gone ahead and appointed selection committees and coaches for various age group teams for the 2014-15 season. The list was emailed to the press on Thursday on the name of its president G. Vinod.

The rival members are crying foul. Such appointments will have to be made at the executive committee meeting and the last one held was on July 8, they complain.

While some term the appointments as unethical, former Test player and HCA president Arshad Ayub called it downright “unconstitutional.”“Mr G. Vinod ceased to be in power on July 7 (after the completion of his two-year term). He is just an interim president entrusted with the responsibility of formally completing the final Annual General Meeting that precedes the election. He is not in office any more and certainly cannot make these appointments,” he told this newspaper.

Others agreed. “These appointments have no bearing,” one office-bearer said.It appears these committees were hurriedly formed to pick a team for the Buchi Babu tournament, starting August 15, which is conducted by the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association headed by ICC chairman and BCCI heavyweight N. Srinivasan.

Coming to the elections, the opposition accuse the ruling group of adopting delaying tactics as they do not have the numbers. Fingers are also being pointed at acting BCCI president N. Shivlal Yadav, also a vice-president of the HCA, for his inaction while some say the delay is to facilitate the possible return of on-leave HCA secretary M.V. Sridhar whose extension as Manager, Cricket Operations, a high-profile paid job with the BCCI, hinges on the September-end elections to the national cricket body.

For the record, the HCA is without an executive head. Elected secretary Sridhar is busy with his BCCI assignment. Joint secretary S. Venkateswaran relinquished his position as acting secretary in protest, alleging that executive decisions were being taken without his knowledge.Be that as it may, moves are also afoot to convene a Special General Meeting in an attempt to revert to the previous practice of including government nominees as vice-presidents on the HCA committee, a rule that was done away with in 2011 in favour of all five elected vice-presidents.

The amendment could read three elected and two nominated or five elected and one nominated vice-presidents. This proposal seems to have hit a roadblock, or at least deferred for the moment.Insiders say this is an attempt to pave the way for information technology minister K.T. Rama Rao, son of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao. Former chief minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy held the co-opted vice-president’s post when he was Speaker of the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh Assembly and was elevated to Patron after becoming the CM.

Chapter-III of the HCA Constitution says: “the Committee may invite the Governor or the Chief Minister of the state to be Patron-in-Chief of the Association. The Committee may invite from time to time other distinguished person(s) to be Patron(s) of the Association).” Whatever the happenings in the HCA, this is certainly not cricket… definitely not a game played by gentlemen.