HCA’s Institutional Fraud: A System Designed to Cheat Cricket

Special Correspondent

If Part I (Rewinding HCA’s Original Sin: The Sub-Lease That Sold Hyderabad Cricket exposed the rot, Part II rips the mask off.

What lands on the table now is not hearsay, not political mudslinging, not the routine blame game that has come to define the Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA). It is something far more damning — a documented, first-hand indictment from a man who has seen both the rise and the ruin of Hyderabad cricket.

A letter from former HCA Secretary P R Mansingh to the High Court-appointed Supervisory Committee led by Justice Naveen Rao is not just a complaint. It is a confession of how deeply the system has decayed — and how brazenly that decay has been normalised.

This is not an administrative failure. This is institutional fraud.

From Jobs to Jugglery: The Great Betrayal

The very idea behind institutional teams in HCA was noble — and necessary.

Affiliations were granted on a simple, powerful promise: institutions would employ cricketers, provide them financial security, and in turn strengthen the ecosystem of Hyderabad cricket. This model once produced giants. It created stability. It gave players dignity.

Today, that promise lies shredded.

As Mansingh points out with brutal clarity, for the past five to six years, these institutions have not employed cricketers at all. Not one. Instead, they have reduced the system to a sham — hiring players temporarily, fielding teams of convenience, and bypassing the most basic eligibility rule: a minimum of seven employees on rolls.

Let that sink in.

Teams that were meant to nurture careers are now outsourcing participation.

This is not cricket. This is contract labour masquerading as sport.

And this distortion is visible even at the highest level of the so-called institutional structure.

Take State Bank of India.

One of the most prominent A Division teams today fields players largely beyond their competitive prime, with little or no pathway to state selection. More critically, it does not employ players in any meaningful way for HCA participation — striking at the very root of the institutional promise.

League or Circus? The Death of Structure

The rot does not stop at employment fraud. It extends into how the game itself is being played — or rather, manipulated.

Instead of participating in structured league formats, several institutional teams are allegedly playing 20-over matches at the whims and fancies of officials, purely to maintain what Mansingh bluntly calls a “vote bank.”

Cricket, reduced to electoral arithmetic.

League integrity, sacrificed for ballot strength.

Rules, bent to suit those who control the levers of power.

And if that was not enough, the distortions deepen sharply when one examines teams such as Union Bank of India, BDL, Central Excise, and Income Tax.

These teams largely field their own employees — but many of them are well past their competitive prime, with little or no bearing on current state-level selection.

Alongside them, current and active players are brought in under the claim of being paid stipends — a parallel layer that sits uneasily with the stated rules.

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Which raises uncomfortable and unavoidable questions.

If these players are good enough to represent the institution, why are they not brought onto formal employment rolls?

If stipends are being paid, what is the legal and financial structure governing such payments? Where is the transparency? Where is the accountability?

Can a stipend, however structured, substitute the fundamental requirement of employment that forms the very basis of institutional cricket?

Or is this merely a convenient mechanism to retain flexibility while formally appearing compliant?

The talk within cricketing circles is clear — there is more to this arrangement than what meets the eye.

And if that was not enough, the allegations get darker — fake scorecards being submitted. Fabricated results. Manufactured participation.

At this point, one must ask: is HCA running a cricket league or a parallel fiction industry?

Ghost Employees, Phantom Teams

The rules are unambiguous: institutional teams must comprise players who are actual employees.

Yet, what Mansingh describes is a system where players are picked from outside, with no employment linkage whatsoever. A blatant violation of the Memorandum and Rules.

But the real scandal lies deeper.

There are teams whose parent institutions do not even exist anymore — wound up, defunct, erased from reality — yet continuing as active members of HCA.

Even more shocking, these ghost entities are voting in elections.

Let that sink in again.

Non-existent institutions influencing real elections.

Dead organisations casting live votes.

This is not mismanagement. This is electoral fraud within a sporting body.

The list named is telling:

* APCOB

* IAF

* IDL

* VST

* National Insurance

* Parishram Bhavan

* RBI

* TSRTC

* TSEB

The question is simple: how many of these are genuinely functioning, compliant, and accountable — and how many are mere instruments in a rigged system?

Hijacked Representation: Who Speaks for Whom?

If the structural violations were not enough, the governance breakdown is equally alarming.

Mansingh points out that representatives of these institutional teams are often not even nominated by the heads of their respective institutions. In some cases, the heads themselves are unaware that such teams exist under their banner.

This is not representation. This is impersonation.

Individuals with no legitimate mandate are occupying positions, exercising voting rights, and enjoying privileges — all under the convenient cover of institutional affiliation.

They are not there to develop cricket. They are there to exploit it.

The Identity Crisis: Institution or Club?

Even among active teams, a deeper ambiguity persists.

Teams such as Deccan Chronicle, Hyderabad Bottling, and India Cements were historically recognised as institutional teams.

But what are they today?

Do they still function as institutions providing employment to cricketers?

Or have they, over time, transformed into de facto clubs operating under the legacy tag of institutional status?

The case of India Cements raises an even more fundamental question.

With its takeover by UltraTech Cement, what happens to its institutional identity within HCA?

Does that status automatically continue?

Is there a process of revalidation?

Or does legacy override legality?

Why does no one address this — clearly, transparently, and once for all?

The Human Cost: Cricketers Abandoned

Lost in this web of manipulation are the very individuals the system was meant to serve — the cricketers.

Promising players, who once relied on institutional jobs for stability, are now left in limbo. With no employment opportunities and no structured support, many are forced to abandon the sport altogether in search of livelihood.

Hyderabad, once a cradle of Indian cricketing excellence, is now a graveyard of unfinished careers.

The pipeline has not just weakened — it has been deliberately choked.

Mansingh’s Prescription: Cleanse or Collapse

Unlike many who merely complain, Mansingh offers clear, actionable solutions:

* Immediate disaffiliation of teams linked to defunct institutions

* Suspension of rule-violating institutions for up to two years

* Permanent termination if compliance is not achieved

* Withdrawal of all rights and privileges during suspension

Simple. Logical. Necessary.

But here lies the real question: does HCA have the will to act against itself?

A Complicit Silence

It would be easy to romanticise Mansingh as a lone whistleblower. But that would be incomplete.

He himself acknowledges, and critics remind us, that the seeds of today’s rot may have been sown during earlier regimes — including his own — when club culture was allowed to drift into private fiefdoms.

That, however, does not dilute the truth of what he is saying today.

If anything, it strengthens it.

Because when insiders begin to speak, it is no longer allegation — it is admission.

Time for Accountability

The Supervisory Committee led by Justice Naveen Rao now sits at a critical juncture.

This is not just about correcting procedural lapses. This is about dismantling a system that has systematically:

* Violated its own rules

* Undermined player welfare

* Manipulated electoral processes

* Reduced cricket to a transactional enterprise

The HCA today stands exposed — not by outsiders, but by its own.

The question is no longer whether there is corruption.

The question is: who will be held accountable?

And more importantly — who will ensure that Hyderabad cricket, once a beacon of excellence, is not reduced to a cautionary tale of how institutions rot when power goes unchecked?

The Unanswered Question

Why doesn’t anyone clear this ambiguity once and for all?

Why not restructure the system transparently, define institutional eligibility, enforce employment norms, and eliminate the grey zones that allow manipulation to thrive?

Who better than Justice Naveen Rao — armed with the authority of the Honorable High Court — to plug every avenue of ambiguity and corruption?

Because unless that happens, this will not remain a story of decline.

It will stand as a case study in how a sporting institution was systematically hollowed out — not in secrecy, but in full public view.