Special Correspondent
Hyderabad women’s cricket is in the middle of a storm — and it is entirely of its own making. The state’s Senior, U-23, and U-19 women’s teams have crashed out of their respective T20 group stages this season, a triple failure that has triggered alarm across Hyderabad’s cricketing circles. Parents, club coaches, and grassroots stakeholders argue that these results are not a coincidence but the direct consequence of a compromised, credibility-starved selection ecosystem.
At the heart of the controversy is the probables phase — a stage meant to be the most democratic and performance-oriented part of the pathway. Instead, multiple voices now describe it as a controlled arena, where a small but powerful coterie allegedly dictates outcomes. According to parents and players, the influence is centred around a senior state player, her long-time coach, and a family member. Together, they are alleged to wield disproportionate sway over role allocations, match usage, and final selections.
This is not the usual “selection bias” complaint heard every year in every cricket association. Stakeholders insist that the interference is systematic. Several players linked to this inner circle, they claim, were repeatedly assigned premium opportunities — opening the innings, batting in the top order, or receiving full bowling quotas — regardless of their form or match-day output. In stark contrast, players with stronger numbers or visible impact on the field were given token overs, limited batting exposure, or shuffled into roles that made it difficult to showcase their abilities.
Parents describe the probable atmosphere as tense and intimidating. There are allegations that junior captains and team leaders were nudged — at times directly pressured — into granting more match-time to favoured players. When teenagers entering the system begin to feel they must obey invisible hierarchies to survive, the very idea of meritocracy collapses. And that collapse is now visible in the scoreboard: three teams, three early exits, one common thread — poor, imbalanced selections.
What has further fanned frustration is Hyderabad’s continued use of an outdated and opaque scoring application during probables matches. In an era when multiple state associations — from Pondicherry and Kerala to Andhra Pradesh — have shifted to transparent, analytics-driven platforms like CricHeroes, Hyderabad’s old system looks like a relic. The absence of MVP calculations, detailed analytics, wagon-wheel breakdowns, impact visibility, and public score access has created a data vacuum. This void is precisely what allows suspicion, doubt, and allegations of favouritism to thrive.
For many parents and club coaches, the matter is simple: if selections were truly performance-based, there would be no hesitation in adopting transparent scoring tools. When the data is locked away, when visibility is restricted, and when the same set of favoured players repeatedly land prime positions during selection matches, the trust deficit becomes impossible to bridge.
Hyderabad has never lacked talent in women’s cricket. Generations of young girls have come through clubs, academies, and school systems with hunger and skill. What they lack today is not opportunity — but a fair chance at opportunity. A system that rewards influence over performance inevitably produces exactly what Hyderabad is witnessing this season: teams that are unprepared, unbalanced, and unable to compete at the national level.
With ODI selections around the corner, anxiety is rising again. Stakeholders fear that unless reforms are implemented immediately, the same flawed process will simply repeat itself — and so will the failures.
The demands being raised are neither radical nor unreasonable:
• adoption of standardised, transparent scoring applications;
• independent oversight during trials;
• clearly published, merit-based criteria;
• strict conflict-of-interest safeguards.
These are the basics of any modern selection system. Hyderabad’s women cricketers do not need miracles — they need fairness. And until the association confronts the allegations, plugs the loopholes, and restores credibility to its selection pathway, the state’s immense talent reservoir will continue to be wasted long before it ever reaches the national stage.
If the High Court–appointed judge truly intends to oversee these brazen irregularities—perpetuated by power brokers, coaching-centre promoters, and their networks—he must either crack the whip or admit helplessness. No one will fault him for being new to cricket administration, but after six months in charge, should he not have constituted an Advisory Committee of former cricketers with impeccable credentials to guide him the right way, instead of relying on a circle of home-picked, vested-interest “yes men”?
