Bigger Than the Association

Vinay Rao

A coach is appointed every year. A mandate is handed down by the courts. A new face arrives with grand intentions. And Hyderabad cricket remains exactly where it was — because everyone entrusted with serving the association has eventually ended up serving themselves.

What Do We Mean by “Bigger Than the Association”?

Justice Naveen Rao and Secretary Jeevan Reddy, like many before them who were entrusted with reforming HCA, appear to be falling into a familiar trap: operating outside the bylaws, making appointments and decisions unilaterally, with little long-term vision and minimal effort to carry stakeholders along.

Court supervision may hold things together for now. But none of these decisions appear to have genuine institutional buy-in. The moment judicial oversight recedes, everything built during this phase becomes contestable — and Hyderabad cricket risks returning to square one yet again.

Serving HCA means working within its framework, not around it. The moment administrators begin bypassing rules in the name of efficiency, they stop serving the association and start replacing it.

DANGER SIGN

A former Andhra Ranji player — previously barred from administration following complaints linked to women’s cricket — is understood to be actively guiding the current HCA administration from behind the scenes.

This is not a peripheral concern. Governance failures in women’s cricket carry specific accountability under BCCI and CoA frameworks. The possibility that someone with such a record continues to wield informal but real influence over HCA’s decision-making is a warning sign that cannot be ignored.

The question is not merely what decisions are being made, but who is making them — and whether those formally entrusted with authority fully understand who is whispering in their ear.

1. Is Wasim Jaffer the Right Fit — or Just the Right Name?

Wasim Jaffer’s playing record is beyond dispute. But coaching is a different craft altogether. His stints with Uttarakhand and Odisha were developmental at best. His tenure with Uttarakhand ended in resignation amid allegations of communal bias — allegations widely rejected by the cricketing fraternity, but still reflective of the institutional dysfunction that can derail coaching programmes before they even begin.

If the reported figure of nearly one crore rupees per annum is accurate, HCA owes its stakeholders a clear explanation: what exactly is being purchased at that price? Hyderabad is already in the Elite Group of the Ranji Trophy. The challenge is not survival; it is sustained contention and progression.

Was a transparent process followed to establish that Jaffer was the best available option at this cost? Or is this yet another bilateral decision presented to stakeholders only after the fact?

1. The Young Coach Who Was Here Last Year

Twelve months ago, HCA appointed a young coach — seemingly signalling a commitment to building from within. He is now gone. No public review. No explanation. No accountability.

No serious cricket structure can build team culture while replacing head coaches every season. IPL franchises that have developed lasting playing identities did so through continuity, not annual reshuffles.

If HCA’s answer to underperformance is simply to change the coach every year, then it is not running a development programme. It is running a patronage circuit. And the young Hyderabad cricketer climbing through the ranks is the one paying the price.

III. The U-23 Blunder — Repeated?

Last year’s decision to place U-23 oversight under junior selectors was widely viewed as a structural mistake. The U-23 category is not merely an advanced junior tier; it is the direct pipeline to the Ranji squad, demanding selectors capable of identifying first-class readiness rather than merely managing age-group cricket.

With a new coach arriving and the administration itself in flux, concerns are growing that a similar structural error may once again be unfolding quietly — with consequences that will only become visible two seasons later.

HCA rarely conducts post-mortems. It simply makes the next appointment and moves on.

1. Ambati Rayudu: Hero or Hazard by Season’s End?

Ambati Rayudu possesses genuine cricketing intelligence and experience. But he is operating within a governance vacuum, and strong personalities inside weak institutions often end up filling the void in ways that later become difficult to reverse.

By the end of the season, the verdict may well be binary: either he helps accelerate Hyderabad’s competitive resurgence, or the association finds itself managing the fallout from well-intentioned overreach. In institutions this fragile, there is rarely any middle ground.

1. Justice Naveen Rao: Reform or Substitution?

The Telangana High Court’s mandate to Justice P. Naveen Rao was specific: oversee reforms, implement systems, and create conditions for a stable transition. The concern now is that implementation may have drifted from reform into substitution.

HCA’s bylaws increasingly appear to be treated as optional, the AGM cycle remains suspended, and major appointments continue to be made without the consultative processes required under the association’s own rules.

Court oversight was intended to repair HCA’s systems — not bypass them. What happens once the mandate ends? If bylaws were circumvented rather than repaired, the next elected administration simply inherits a fresh precedent for non-compliance. The cycle begins all over again.

The mandate should be to function within HCA’s framework, identify structural flaws, recommend amendments through proper AGM procedures, and ultimately hand over a functioning institution — not govern as a substitute authority that will inevitably one day depart.

The Bottom Line

Wasim Jaffer may yet prove to be an excellent coach for Hyderabad. But his appointment — opaque in process, unexplained in rationale, and unaccompanied by any measurable performance framework — is merely a symptom, not the cure.

The real crisis is larger than any one appointment or individual. It is an institution that has increasingly become a prize to be captured rather than a trust to be administered.

Until HCA’s bylaws are respected, its AGM process restored, its coaching pathways made transparent, and its selection structures insulated from politics and patronage, every new arrival will eventually be consumed by the same dysfunction.

Hyderabad cricket deserves better. Its players deserve better. And the young cricketer who cannot buy influence or access deserves an association that works for the game — not one that has spent two decades working against itself.