Special Correspondent
The Hyderabad Cricket Association today appears less like a united sporting body and more like a battlefield of bruised egos, frustrated power centres, and vested interests unwilling to let the game breathe in peace. The endless complaints, anonymous leaks, WhatsApp propaganda, selective outrage, and counter-allegations flooding your e-paper office raise one unavoidable question: Who truly wants to protect Hyderabad cricket, and who merely wants to control it?
Unlike many sports scribes who limit themselves to match reports, scorecards, and ceremonial press notes, responsible journalism demands scrutiny of the administration too — especially in an association already drowning in allegations of corruption, favouritism, legal battles, financial irregularities, and institutional decay. That is precisely why these developments cannot simply be brushed aside as “internal matters.”
But after weeks of conversations with stakeholders across the HCA ecosystem — club secretaries, former apex council members, administrators, insiders, and cricketing voices — one disturbing pattern emerges clearly: many of the loudest critics of the proposed TG20 tournament are themselves former power-holders who appear deeply upset at being sidelined from positions of influence.
The obvious question, therefore, is this: is the outrage genuinely about protecting cricket, or about losing access to power and patronage?
Several former apex council members, including some who once held influential posts such as Secretary and even President, are now suddenly portraying themselves as guardians of constitutional morality. Yet where is the evidence backing their explosive allegations? Where are the documents? Where is the proof? Where are the formal legal challenges?
Can individuals who spent years inside the HCA system genuinely claim ignorance about BCCI rules, operational procedures, judicial limitations, and governance frameworks? Or are these theatrics merely the reaction of individuals denied plum assignments in the TG20 ecosystem?
One cannot ignore the whispers growing louder within cricketing circles that certain former office-bearers allegedly expected influential positions akin to CEO-level operational control in the TG20 structure, only to be ignored by those they reportedly backed during the recent HCA elections for the posts of Secretary and Treasurer.
If true, does this not expose the real source of their frustration?
These are uncomfortable questions. But journalism loses its purpose the day it stops asking uncomfortable questions.
During an elaborate interaction with the present HCA Secretary, this correspondent found areas to agree with and areas to disagree with. But one thing appeared unmistakably clear — his intent to push a state-wide T20 platform aimed at unearthing rural cricketing talent appears genuine and direct.
His counter-question to critics deserves serious attention.
Would an association as old and institutionally significant as the HCA dare to openly violate BCCI norms and invite disciplinary action? Why would it knowingly walk into a legal and administrative disaster?
The Secretary has repeatedly maintained that the HCA proceeded only after receiving clearance from the BCCI to conduct the TG20 tournament. If that assertion is false, the critics must prove it. If it is true, then why this orchestrated hysteria?
Even more importantly, if the TG20 allegedly violates earlier judicial observations, are critics seriously suggesting that Justice Naveen Rao — a former High Court judge entrusted with overseeing HCA reforms and administration — is either unaware of the legal implications or willing to participate in something unlawful?
That is an extraordinarily serious insinuation.
Those recklessly throwing mud must answer whether they are indirectly questioning the credibility and judgment of the very judicial mechanism they earlier celebrated.
The Secretary’s argument, at least on the face of it, carries logic. The burden now shifts to the critics to produce something more substantial than WhatsApp forwards, anonymous allegations, selective leaks, and orchestrated trolling campaigns.
Former Secretaries and ex-office bearers who continue making sensational allegations despite having deep contacts within cricketing administration must answer another obvious question: why haven’t they formally approached the BCCI for clarifications if they genuinely believe rules are being violated?
Why indulge in media theatrics instead of institutional engagement?
Why not directly meet the Secretary?
Why not place objections before Justice Naveen Rao’s one-man committee?
Why not seek formal legal remedy instead of manufacturing outrage through coordinated whisper campaigns?
And above all, why are the same individuals who claim to be crusaders against corruption strangely silent on the demand for a full-fledged Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe into HCA affairs?
This is where the hypocrisy becomes impossible to ignore.
For years, allegations have swirled around stadium construction controversies, questionable financial transactions, selector appointments, alleged “pay-to-play” culture, misuse of funds, commercial exploitation of club infrastructure, and manipulation within league structures. Yet many who are shouting the loudest today were themselves integral parts of the same ecosystem.
Why are they suddenly hesitant about an SIT investigation headed by a senior police officer?
What exactly are they afraid of?
Could it be that an honest probe may not stop with current administrators alone?
Could it also revisit past regimes, forgotten files, vanished decisions, dubious transactions, and politically protected beneficiaries?
And what happened to the once thunderous outrage over the alleged transfer of Rs 65 or Rs 69 crore to a corporate entity linked to stadium construction controversies? At one stage, these very stakeholders climbed rooftops demanding accountability. Media platforms prominently highlighted those demands. Today, however, there is a deafening silence.
Why?
Has selective morality now replaced accountability?
The reality is brutal but undeniable: Hyderabad cricket has suffered not merely because of one administration or one faction, but because generations of administrators converted cricket into a private fiefdom instead of nurturing it as a sporting institution.
Many club secretaries who today lecture others on ethics have themselves allegedly transformed cricket clubs into commercial real-estate hubs, shamelessly sub-leasing properties and monetising cricket infrastructure while grassroots cricket continued gasping for survival.
Where was their conscience then?
Where was this sudden love for constitutional propriety when clubs became centres of commercial greed rather than cricketing development?
Where was the outrage when aspiring cricketers and helpless parents whispered about an alleged “pay-to-play” culture?
Where were these self-proclaimed custodians when Hyderabad cricket’s reputation collapsed nationally under endless scandals?
This e-paper has no hesitation in stating that Hyderabad cricket does not need more power brokers. It needs accountability, transparency, grassroots investment, and genuine cricketing reform.
The TG20 initiative, if honestly executed, has the potential to take cricket beyond the urban elite pockets and into rural Telangana, where raw talent remains buried under a lack of exposure and opportunity. Thousands of young cricketers dream of platforms that the traditional system denied them for decades.
Should such an initiative be strangled merely because certain former administrators failed to secure positions of influence?
Certainly, scrutiny of finances is legitimate. If there are irregularities, let there be a probe. If money has been mishandled, let accountability follow. Nobody should be above investigation.
But sabotaging a tournament before the first ball is bowled purely through propaganda, innuendo, and coordinated disinformation serves nobody except those desperate to preserve old power structures.
If the Secretary’s claim is true that nearly Rs 46 crore has already been mobilised through franchise participation, then the discussion should focus on transparency, auditing, governance mechanisms, and cricketing benefits — not character assassination campaigns driven by personal disappointment.
OrangeNews9 believes responsible journalism means asking hard questions to everyone — including those pretending to be reformers while carrying the baggage of the very system they helped damage.
The future of Hyderabad cricket cannot be held hostage by bitter factions fighting yesterday’s political wars.
The real question is simple:
Who truly wants to rebuild Hyderabad cricket?
And who merely wants control over its ruins?
