By Vinay Rao
On the surface, Hyderabad cricket has enjoyed a season that deserves applause. The Under-19 boys lifting the prestigious Vinoo Mankad Trophy and the senior team’s spirited campaign in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy should have been celebrated as milestones of revival and promise. Yet, scratch beneath that glossy veneer and a far more troubling picture emerges — one that threatens to undo every hard-earned success.
While the seniors have fought valiantly and the U19s have soared, Hyderabad’s junior cricket ecosystem is quietly but alarmingly rotting. What were once murmurs confined to dressing rooms and practice nets have now grown into a chorus too loud to ignore. The debacles in the U23 One-Day tournament, the repeated embarrassments in the Cooch Behar Trophy, and the lingering controversies surrounding the Vijay Merchant Trophy have collectively exposed a system in deep distress.
This is no longer about an off-season slump or a bad batch of players. The patterns are too consistent, the failures too frequent, and the decline too steep to be dismissed as coincidence or incompetence. Something is fundamentally broken.
Months of sustained writing, repeated warnings, and a string of on-field disasters have seemingly failed to shake the establishment into action. One is compelled to ask an uncomfortable question: if this does not trigger reform, what will? The Hyderabad Cricket Association — and even the court-appointed administrator entrusted with restoring order — can no longer afford the luxury of silence or indifference. Inaction, at this stage, borders on complicity.
The real victims of this decay are not balance sheets or reputations, but young cricketers and their families. Teenagers with dreams of wearing Hyderabad colours arrive with hope, trust, and years of sacrifice behind them. Increasingly, many leave disillusioned, confused, and wounded. The ecosystem has become fertile ground for exploitation, where a few individuals operate unchecked, preying on ambition and vulnerability for personal gain.
So bleak has the situation become that parents privately wonder whether only online payment trails, signed bonds, or recorded conversations would be enough to prompt corrective action — and even then, the outcome appears uncertain. When faith in fair selection collapses, cricket ceases to be a sport and becomes a gamble rigged against merit.
Against this disturbing backdrop, the Hyderabad senior team’s Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy campaign offered moments of genuine pride. For the most part, the side competed with intent and discipline, showing signs of maturity and tactical clarity. Fate, however, can be cruel. Their worst performance arrived on the most decisive day.
The absence of the captain and strike bowler C V Milind proved decisive. Devoid of leadership and control, Hyderabad looked directionless under pressure. Haryana, on the other hand, arrived with clarity, hunger, and a ruthless plan of execution.
The match was effectively sealed in the final five overs. Samant’s breathtaking 60 off just 22 balls, punctuated by eight towering sixes, and Parth Vats’ equally brutal 45 off 19 deliveries (four fours and three sixes) turned a competitive contest into a massacre. Nearly 100 runs were leaked at the death, exposing Hyderabad’s inability to control momentum when it mattered most. Haryana galloped to a daunting 246, with every Hyderabad bowler wearing the scars of an unforgiving onslaught.
The chase never truly began. Hyderabad folded for 122, with Rahul Buddhi’s 37 standing as the lone act of resistance in an otherwise tame surrender.
Yet, to reduce the season to one disastrous game would be unfair. There were undeniable positives. Aman Rao’s maiden IPL selection was richly deserved and symbolic of Hyderabad’s latent talent. Tanay Thyagarajan, Rahul Buddhi, Pragnay Reddy, and Milind himself made consistent contributions across formats. Towering above them all was Tanmay Agarwal — the embodiment of consistency, temperament, and hunger — continuing to set standards both in performance and professionalism.
However, progress does not excuse complacency. Some hard questions must be asked of the selectors and team management if Hyderabad are serious about bridging the gap with elite domestic sides.
Why did the squad travel with three left-arm spinners in formats and conditions crying out for variation? Where is the middle-overs firepower — a deficiency that resurfaces with depressing regularity? Time and again, Hyderabad lose control between overs 7 and 15, both with bat and ball, allowing opposition sides to dictate tempo without resistance.
Equally alarming is the absence of fast-bowling all-rounders being groomed for white-ball cricket. Modern limited-overs cricket demands seamers who can bat deep and finish games, yet Hyderabad’s pipeline in this department is alarmingly thin. Add to this sub-par fielding and catching — lapses that repeatedly swung momentum away at critical junctures — and the margins of defeat become self-inflicted.
The issues run even deeper when one examines selection matches for tournaments like the Vijay Hazare Trophy. Opportunity appears increasingly dictated by opinion rather than performance. The same names resurface season after season, enjoying extended runs regardless of output, while several others are left in a perpetual state of uncertainty.
Some players are allowed the luxury to fail repeatedly, secure in the knowledge that another chance awaits. Others, equally gifted, are denied even a fair audition. They are never given the luxury to succeed because they are never truly given an opportunity.
A few benefit. Many suffer quietly.
Hyderabad cricket now stands at a crossroads. The raw talent is undeniable — the U19 triumph and flashes of senior excellence prove what is possible when merit is allowed to breathe. But talent alone cannot survive a poisoned ecosystem.
What is urgently required is accountability, transparency, and the courage to clean house — not merely at the top, but across every rung of the system. Selection must be fair, pathways must be clear, and exploitation must be stamped out without fear or favour.
Only then can the focus return to cricket.
Only then can merit reclaim its rightful place.
And only then can Hyderabad genuinely aspire to lift the Ranji Trophy again — and reclaim its long-lost stature in Indian cricket.
