Telangana’s Due Place in Indian Cricket

For more than eleven years, Telangana’s cricketers have been left stranded—caught between the rot of the Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) and the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) reluctance to enforce its own constitutional order. It is time this denial ends.

Telangana’s players deserve a clear pathway, and the Telangana Cricket Association (TCA) must be given its rightful recognition.

This is not a sentimental demand. It rests firmly on three undeniable grounds.

First, the Justice R.M. Lodha reforms, upheld by the Supreme Court, mandated that every state in the Indian Union must be a full member of the BCCI. Telangana, carved as India’s 29th state in 2014, is therefore entitled by birthright to representation. It cannot remain forever subsumed under a dysfunctional Hyderabad unit.

Second, the BCCI’s own Constitution recognizes Telangana as a full member. Nowhere does it list “Hyderabad” or the erstwhile princely state as an entitled unit. If Telangana is in the book, Telangana must have an association. Anything less amounts to the BCCI violating its own governing document.

Third, HCA has disqualified itself by every measure. Forensic audits and judicial committees since 2017 have uncovered repeated non-compliance, embezzlement, criminal cases, and institutional collapse. By Rule 3(b) of BCCI membership (BCCI Rule 3(b) – Grounds for Sanction & de-recognition of a Full Member: 3(b) (1)(I), (ii), (iv), (v), (vi), (viii), (ix), & 3(b)(2) & 3(b)(3).

And Rule 3(c) – Annual Updates Not Complied with CAG Norms for more than two consecutive years.

Apart from the mentioned Rules, HCA never followed or practiced the BCCI Memorandum of Association: (2. The Objects and Purposes of BCCI) (a), (b), & (d).

Hence, HCA stands unfit to represent the Full State. Indeed, the BCCI itself, in July 2021, directed HCA to collaborate with TCA outside Hyderabad city—an order brazenly defied.

Meanwhile, TCA has quietly built infrastructure, transparent systems, and compliance frameworks expected of a modern state cricket body. It does not merely offer an alternative; it is the rightful heir to Telangana’s cricketing future.

The choice before the BCCI is therefore stark: perpetuate a corrupt monopoly, or honour its own constitution and empower a state that has waited patiently for justice. Recognition of TCA is not charity—it is overdue correction.

The record of HCA since 2015 reads like a case study in how political interference and greed can ruin sport. In my recent representation to Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, I drew attention to the grave irregularities and quid pro quo arrangements between former minister K.T. Rama Rao, his relatives, and HCA officials.

The collusion achieved five things:

• Enabled systematic loot of HCA funds.
• Caused losses to the State and Union Governments.
• Cheated taxpayers.
• Manipulated elections.
• Denied fair opportunities to youth.

The irregularities were not stray lapses but a decade-long pattern:

1. Political interference and quid pro quo: The HCA’s own annual report (2015–16) recorded that K.T. Rama Rao was nominated to the BCCI’s IT & Data Management Sub-Committee—despite explicit rules barring ministers from such posts. His brother-in-law’s firm, EventsNow.com, cornered exclusive IPL ticketing rights. In return, HCA’s ₹14 crore property tax dues were quietly rescheduled into token instalments of ₹25 lakhs a year, while pending income tax and service tax disputes were mediated away.
2. Dummy billing and kickbacks: Even after the ticketing contract expired in 2019, HCA continued to show annual liabilities of ₹12 lakhs to the same company till 2025—suggesting dummy billing and kickbacks.
3. Fraudulent audits: From 2015 onwards, HCA recycled the same copy-paste audit report year after year, brushing aside statutory objections. Two independent forensic audits, in 2017 and again in 2023, confirmed large-scale fraud, but corrective action never came.
4. Misuse of BCCI grants: Every year, around ₹6.1 crore was shown as grants to “clubs,” many of which exist only on paper. Another ₹12 crores were siphoned off as “administrative expenditure” without vouchers. Institutional clubs, favoured under political pressure, routinely received four times more funds than private clubs.
5. Election manipulation: The recently arrested HCA President secured office through tampering of voter rolls and misuse of government institutional votes.
6. Fraudulent clubs: Nearly 155 clubs affiliated to HCA fail compliance norms and are liable for suspension. This is a direct violation of the BCCI Constitution, amounting to fraud and criminal misconduct.

The nexus between politicians and HCA has destroyed the credibility of cricket governance in Telangana. Complaints before the ACB, Police, and ED went nowhere due to political shielding. Only recently has the CID made arrests under Case No. 02/2025. But unless the investigation is expanded to cover the last decade—including dummy clubs and money laundering—the full truth will remain buried.

The National Sports Governance Bill now provides a framework for transparency. HCA must be brought under these norms, and guilty officials prosecuted under criminal law. Only then will Telangana’s youth believe cricket is free from political capture.

In my appeal to the Chief Minister and the Union Sports Minister, I have made three prayers in the larger public interest:

1. Criminal action: Expand the CID probe or hand it to CBI/ED to investigate the decade of corruption, including the role of K.T. Rama Rao and complicit HCA officials.
2. Dissolution of HCA: Cancel HCA’s registration as a society and terminate its lease on the Uppal Stadium.
3. Recognition of TCA: BCCI to recognize TCA as Telangana’s representative body, or restructure the state unit under BCCI’s Constitution with TCA as its leading constituent.

For years, Telangana’s youth have paid the price of political games and administrative rot. The previous government allowed HCA to degenerate into a den of nepotism and fraud. Unless firm action is taken now, the damage could become permanent.

Cricket in Telangana does not need sympathy—it needs justice. Recognition of TCA is not merely a demand from administrators; it is the rightful expectation of every aspiring cricketer in the state. The BCCI and the government must act. Telangana has waited long enough.