Hyderabad: The Telangana Cricket Association (TCA) launched a scathing attack on the Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) on Sunday, cautioning its administration against misinterpreting a recent regulatory ruling as a validation of its governance standards.
In an official press statement, the Telangana Cricket Association (TCA) General Secretary, Dharam Guruva Reddy, said that following an order issued on September 26 by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) Ombudsman, any attempts by HCA to paint the decision as a “clean bill of health” are misguided and factually inaccurate.
A Procedural Dismissal, Not an Exoneration
The ruling in Complaint No. 22 of 2026 was delivered by Justice Arun Mishra (Retd.), former Supreme Court judge and current BCCI Ombudsman and Ethics Officer. The complaint was disposed of strictly on jurisdictional and procedural grounds. Rather than exonerating the HCA administration, the Ombudsman explicitly left all substantive questions open for review before the appropriate competent forums.
TCA General Secretary further emphasized that the decision does not validate HCA’s controversial governance model or voting structure. “The Ombudsman declined to adjudicate on specific institutional memberships simply because those individual entities were not impleaded. That is a basic procedural safeguard, not a judicial stamp of approval,” Guruva Reddy noted. “To claim victory over a procedural dismissal that explicitly preserves all substantive allegations for future trial is self-delusional.
“Disparities in Regional Representation
The Ombudsman’s order formally documents several unrefuted allegations regarding HCA’s membership distribution across the state:
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Urban Concentration: Out of 217 voting members, 209 are concentrated exclusively in central Hyderabad.
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Nominal District Clubs: The remaining eight club members bearing district names operate directly out of Hyderabad City rather than their respective regions.
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Lack of Statewide Representation: Despite Telangana’s administrative expansion into 33 districts, cricket governance under HCA remains confined to a localized urban enclave.
Key Governance Challenges Remain Unresolved
TCA asserted that HCA must answer critical historical and structural questions before regulatory bodies, pointing to three key areas of ongoing concern:
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Privileged Club Status: The documentary basis allowing non-cricketing entities, such as Secunderabad Club and Fateh Maidan Club, to retain permanent full membership and voting rights.
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Rural Neglect: The alignment of an administrative structure that limits access, coaching, and infrastructure for rural talent with the overarching BCCI Constitution.
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Pending Judicial Oversight: The contrast between claims of clean operations and active legal matters, including PIL No. 16 of 2017 in the Telangana High Court, six pending writ appeals regarding the Single Member Committee’s authority, and previous Supreme Court oversight under SLP(C) No. 6779/2021.
Next Steps for State Cricket Reform
TCA, which has long advocated for a decentralized cricket administration across all 33 districts of Telangana and continues to pursue Associate Membership with the BCCI, views the Ombudsman’s ruling as momentum for its broader reform efforts.
“The September 26 order did not close the chapter on HCA’s compliance—it kept every single substantive question alive,” Guruva Reddy said, and added, “If HCA leadership thinks they have been cleared, they are misreading the law. We will present these factual, documentary, and institutional questions before the competent judicial and regulatory forums. The ultimate answer will come from the BCCI Constitution and the courts, not HCA’s public PR campaigns.”
