Who Will Save HCA Cricket Now?

Special Correspondent

Every change of guard in Hyderabad cricket arrives wrapped in lofty promises of reform. And every time, the outcome is depressingly familiar: hope raised, trust betrayed, and players left to pick up the pieces. What is unfolding under the current dispensation is no different—except that this time, the collapse is happening under the watch of a court-appointed administrator. That alone should have guaranteed transparency. Instead, it has delivered silence, selective action, and a deepening culture of fear.

This publication recently placed on record what many in Hyderabad cricket whisper in private but fear to say aloud in public. An aspiring cricketer’s parent produced concrete proof of having paid Rs 24 lakh to secure his son a place in the state Under-23 team. The money was taken. The promise was made. The player’s name never appeared in the list of probables.

When the parent demanded his money back, he was not met with explanation or accountability—but with open threats of consequences.

What followed is even more damning.

The aggrieved parent walked into the local police station, carrying evidence, seeking protection, and asking for a simple, lawful step: register an FIR. He was turned away. Not once, but repeatedly. The complaint was not recorded. The threats were not acknowledged. The message was unmistakable: in this ecosystem, the law has its own selective eyesight.

We did not stop at publishing this exposé. The matter was formally escalated to the State Police Chief and to the High Court-appointed administrator, Justice Naveen Rao, with a clear request for urgent intervention and protection for the complainant.

Days have passed. There has been no visible inquiry, no assurance of safety, no disciplinary action, and no accountability.

In a system that claims to be under judicial supervision, the silence is deafening. For parents and young cricketers watching from the sidelines, the lesson is brutal: dreams can be bought, complaints can be buried, and fear travels faster than justice.

Justice Naveen Rao’s appointment was initially welcomed. A judicial hand at the helm was supposed to clean up years of administrative rot, factional warfare, and allegations of manipulation. The leagues were conducted, promotions declared, and for a brief moment, it appeared that order was returning.

That moment has passed.

As litigation mounted and internal power struggles intensified, the court extended his mandate to include systemic reform. Parents, players, and neutral members believed the reckoning had finally arrived. Today, many feel the opposite: that the administrator has become a bystander to the very forces he was meant to confront.

The decay is not abstract—it is visible on the field. Match balls of substandard quality. Playing kits that fall apart within a single game. Only one match set issued to players. Several teams forced to buy their own league balls to ensure matches can be played properly.

Travel kits and training gear remain missing for many players. Complaints have been filed. No inquiry has followed. If this is not institutional apathy, what is?

Even sporting merit is no longer safe.

Promotion criteria, by multiple accounts, were altered after the league stage concluded on December 22. A circular issued post facto is now being used to determine which teams move up. Group toppers find themselves at the mercy of bureaucratic interpretation rather than performance on the field.

The perception—fair or not—is damaging: that rules are being bent to favour the powerful and the well-connected.

The General Body, once the backbone of the Association’s democratic functioning, has been reduced to a spectator.

Two key constitutional posts—Secretary and Treasurer—have remained vacant for months. Bye-laws mandate elections. None have been conducted. These are not ornamental roles. They are central to financial oversight and administrative accountability. Their absence leaves a vacuum where transparency should be.

Meanwhile, a Bye-laws Committee operates under a cloud of opacity. Its purpose, composition, and authority remain unclear. Members facing conflict-of-interest and integrity allegations continue, while others have reportedly been removed without explanation. With a Sports Bill on the horizon, this process raises uncomfortable questions about who is shaping the future—and for whose benefit.

The Telangana Premier League (TPL) may be a valuable platform for players. But its Governing Council is, under the bye-laws, the exclusive domain of the General Body. That authority has been appropriated.

Individuals with no formal role under the Association’s rules have found places of influence, while others have been excluded without transparent criteria. The result is not development—it is division.

Selections for state teams, sources say, are being conducted over phone calls and in private residences—far from the designated venues like the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium or the Secunderabad Gymkhana ground, where the HCA’s official Coaching Academy Chief is supposed to be stationed. This raises an obvious question: what exactly is his mandate? No one seems to know. Then why have an Academy at all, when it could serve a far more meaningful role by ensuring selectors convene formally and pick state teams under transparent, institutional oversight?

Worse, there are no recorded minutes of selection meetings. No video documentation. No published performance metrics. In a system that claims to nurture talent, the process itself remains buried in secrecy—shielded from scrutiny and accountability.

WhatsApp messages, players allege, are being used to confirm decisions.

Is it any surprise, then, that on-field performance mirrors off-field disorder? Hyderabad’s recent showing against Vidarbha only sharpened the frustration. Many expected the court-appointed administrator to crack the whip, demand accountability from selectors, and force change. That expectation now feels naïve.

True reform is uncomfortable. It cannot be run through a narrow circle of familiar faces. Insulation breeds the same culture judicial intervention was meant to destroy.

An early SGM should have:

• Identified urgent problems
• Set clear priorities
• Placed major decisions, including the TPL, before the General Body

Instead, unilateral decisions have widened divisions and weakened legitimacy.

Former players and senior administrators carry decades of experience. Excluding them is not reform—it is negligence.

Selectors, coaches, and support staff should be subjected to a data-driven performance review. Results, not relationships, must guide decisions.

When the court itself acknowledges corruption and violations, inaction is indefensible. Complaints must be independently probed, findings made public, and deterrent action taken.

Judicial intervention was meant to restore faith in Hyderabad cricket. Instead, it now risks becoming a shield behind which the old culture of silence, intimidation, and transactional power quietly survives.

The Rs 24 lakh allegation is no longer just a scandal. It is a referendum on the system itself.

When a parent is allegedly cheated, threatened, and then turned away by the police, the rot is no longer confined to the Association—it spills into the institutions meant to protect citizens.

If the Hyderabad Cricket Association cannot guarantee transparent governance, fair selection, and basic legal protection for whistleblowers, a harder question must be asked:

Should the Board of Control for Cricket in India continue to fund an Association that cannot—or will not—clean itself up?

Funding is not charity. It is a vote of confidence.

Until HCA demonstrates genuine accountability—through independent investigations, open governance, and fearless action against corruption—the BCCI must consider using the only language such systems understand: financial consequences and structural intervention.

Hyderabad cricket does not need another committee, another administrator, or another round of promises. It needs a reckoning.

Because when everyone in the chain appears settled into a system that rewards silence and monetises power, the real losers are not just young cricketers—they are the credibility of the sport itself.