By Vinay Rao
How will Hyderabad find its next Mohammad Siraj or Tilak Varma if the talent pool itself remains narrow? When the same players are repeatedly rotated through age-group and senior sides until they eventually succeed, opportunity becomes persistence-driven rather than merit-driven. Such insulation may work briefly at the domestic level, but it becomes a liability against stronger opposition and at higher levels of selection, where protection disappears.
Hyderabad must invest in identifying players who can survive on their own—cricketers capable of competing, adapting, and winning battles without repeated cushioning. Only a wider, genuinely competitive pool can produce players ready for the demands beyond the state setup.
How Secrecy, Conflicts, and Discretion Are Bleeding Hyderabad Cricket
Poor results are routinely dismissed as bad form or a weak batch of players. It is a comforting explanation—and a deeply dishonest one. Results are not accidents. They are the inevitable outcome of the systems that govern selection, preparation, and accountability. When those systems are opaque, conflicted, and shielded from scrutiny, the scoreboard eventually exposes the truth.
This is not a talent problem.
It is a systemic failure that prevents talent from ever reaching the surface.
Young cricketers across Hyderabad are learning lessons far removed from technique or temperament. Not about cover drives or wrist position—but about survival and optics.
“Beta, why right-arm medium?”
“Left-arm spinner ban jao. Zyada scope hai.”
“Performance nahi, projection chalta hai.”
“Tera age kya hai?”
These are not coaching tips.
They are survival strategies in a distorted ecosystem.
The Cost of a Lost Year
Governance debates often overlook the most brutal reality: the human cost. A year lost to a player is not a statistic—it is an opportunity that never returns. Cricket careers are short. Age-group windows are ruthless. One unjustly bypassed season can permanently alter a career’s trajectory.
These failures are not abstract.
They shape lives, futures, and livelihoods.
Selection Without Competition
Concerns intensified during recent selection camps. Instead of competitive match simulations, players were assessed through artificial constructs—batsmen batting in isolation, bowlers operating in silos, entirely detached from real match conditions.
Such formats make genuine comparison impossible. Worse, they create space for engineered match-ups rather than earned outcomes.
At the junior level, persistent concerns remain that favourable match-ups were designed to assist select players, particularly following recent age-group success. But trophies are not a licence to dilute standards. Success should harden governance, not soften it.
Vanishing Records, Absolute Authority
In modern sport, data does not disappear innocently. When performance records are missing, delayed, or selectively presented, the question is no longer technical—it is institutional: what scrutiny is being avoided?
In Hyderabad cricket, complete performance data from selection matches and state teams is routinely unavailable. Scorecards from selection games remain unpublished. Incomplete or selectively curated data is reportedly used to justify final selections.
Decisions taken without full records are indefensible—especially when insulated from review.
Transparency is not an inconvenience. It is the minimum safeguard against arbitrary power. Publishing performance data allows players to understand decisions, correct factual errors, and assess merit objectively. Every credible evaluation system allows revalidation. If there is no manipulation, transparency should pose no threat.
Instead, the current process resembles an opaque “talent X-ray” model—verdicts without evidence, conclusions without disclosure.
Parents, club secretaries, and players have repeatedly flagged that performance is being sidelined. Even court-appointed administrators often find themselves constrained, forced to rely on partial or selectively curated information. Delay has become a familiar tactic: allow scrutiny to fade, let the season pass.
Authority without complete records is not governance.
It is unchecked discretion.
Captaincy as Musical Chairs
This season witnessed extraordinary instability in leadership across age groups.
Seniors
- Rahul Singh
- C. V. Milind
- Rahul Singh
- Tilak Varma
- C. V. Milind
- xXXXX
Under-23
- Mayank Gupta
- Aravalli Avanish
- Aman Rao
- xXXXX
Under-19
- Aaron George
- Yashveer Goud
- Aaron George
- Alankrit Rapole
Contrast this chaos with campaigns like the Vinoo Mankad Trophy (won) and the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (creditable performance)—both driven by a single, settled captain.
The lesson is neither new nor complex: stability builds teams. Convention dictates selecting the best eleven first, then appointing a captain. In Hyderabad cricket, captaincy increasingly appears driven by preference—or speculative experiments in finding the next Mahendra Singh Dhoni—rather than leadership continuity.
The Conflict No One Wants to Address
At the heart of the crisis lies an uncomfortable truth: selectors and coaches operating as private mentors within the very selection ecosystem they control.
Several troubling patterns have emerged:
- A selector disengaging from private mentoring only immediately before—or just after—assuming official duties, without public disclosure
- Another selector continuing to mentor specialist players drawn from the same talent pool being evaluated
- Team coaches mentoring players who later advance to state teams overseen by the same individuals
Coaching is not the issue.
Mentorship is not the issue.
Non-disclosure and non-recusal are.
The Lodha Committee was unequivocal: even the perception of bias corrodes credibility. Disclosure is mandatory. Recusal is non-negotiable. Fairness must not only exist—it must be seen to exist.
Continuity Without Accountability
Despite consistently poor outcomes in competitions such as the Col. C. K. Nayudu Trophy and one-day tournaments, there has been little institutional review. Continuity has been mistaken for stability. Faulty judgment has not been examined—it has been reinforced.
Simultaneously, there is a sudden urgency to fast-track Under-19 players into the Under-23 setup, despite underwhelming results in the Cooch Behar Trophy. With a deep and competitive 19–23 talent pool available, bypassing league and probable performers raises fundamental questions of fairness and process.
Why Silence Is Dangerous
What is tolerated today becomes tomorrow’s precedent. If opacity, conflicted roles, and discretionary authority remain unchallenged, future administrators will cite the present as justification.
That is how institutions decay—not through one catastrophic decision, but through repeated inaction.
The BCCI framework and Lodha reforms exist precisely to prevent this erosion. They are not advisory notes. They are safeguards.
The Only Way Forward
Hyderabad cricket does not need intrigue.
It needs sunlight.
- Publish complete performance data
- Disclose conflicts of interest
- Enforce mandatory recusal
- Review outcomes honestly
Because processes determine results—and standards define processes.
If standards are not enforced now, the consequences will compound. Players will lose seasons they can never reclaim. And an institution that once commanded trust will steadily lose the right to demand it.
This debate will not disappear through silence.
It will only grow louder.
A Narrow Window for Correction
With these issues now widely discussed, attention inevitably turns to the High Court–appointed Supervisory Committee and its role at this stage of the season. Justice Naveen Rao is widely regarded as a reforming figure, and expectations around his stewardship have naturally been high. However, the absence of visible course correction has led to growing frustration among stakeholders, particularly when outcomes on the field and persistent complaints appear unchanged. That gap between expectation and action risks eroding confidence in the supervisory process itself.
A limited but meaningful intervention remains possible. Concerns surrounding the Senior and Junior Selection Committees are not of the same nature. Criticism of the Senior Selectors largely centres on conservatism—being opinionated and reluctant to experiment—yet their teams have delivered reasonably stable results. The concerns around the Junior Selection Committee, however, are far more fundamental, extending beyond selection philosophy to process, transparency, and trust. Temporarily assigning Under-23 selections to the Senior Committee would therefore be a measured administrative reset, not a judgment on intent. Acting now would demonstrate that oversight is responsive, not symbolic—and that accountability is not deferred simply because the season is nearing its end.
Risk & Intent Clarification
This article does not allege individual wrongdoing. It flags systemic failures arising from observable patterns, documented gaps, and long-standing grievances within Hyderabad cricket. The intent is not to ascribe motive, but to demand transparency, fairness, and governance consistent with BCCI norms and the Lodha Committee reforms.
The questioning process is not an accusation.
It is an institutional duty.
Sunlight protects players, administrators, and the institution alike.
