ACA serves show-cause notice to Vihari

“This is just to find what made him react the way he did last month. He has not reached out to us, so this is a chance for him to come out with his grievances.

Bengaluru: The Andhra Cricket Association has served a show-cause notice to Hanuma Vihari a month after the India batter accused the governing body of unceremoniously removing him from captaincy and vowed not to play for the state again.

However, Vihari is yet to respond to the notice which was served after the ACA Apex Council meeting a few days ago. “Yes, we have served him a show-cause notice and we are awaiting his reply,” an ACA official told PTI on conditions of anonymity. However, the official said the association did not want to prolong the issue.

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“This is just to find what made him react the way he did last month. He has not reached out to us, so this is a chance for him to come out with his grievances.

“After all, we value Vihari and his contributions to the growth of state cricket as he has played a big part in Andhra going up in the ranks in domestic cricket,” he added.

The train of unsavoury incidents began soon after Andhra lost to Madhya Pradesh in this year’s Ranji Trophy quarterfinal. The 30-year-old right-handed batter took to social media to accuse the ACA of stripping him of captaincy right after Andhra’s first match of the season against Bengal.

However, at that time Vihari attributed the decision to “personal reasons.” But in his Instagram post, Vihari said the ACA acted under pressure from a local politician after his son, a 17th player during that match, complained that the middle-order batter shouted swear words at him. “I have decided that I will never play for Andhra where I lost my self-respect,” Vihari wrote in his emotional outburst.

Later, Vihari, who played 16 Tests for India, also posted a letter of support from his fellow Andhra players on his X account. However, KN Prudhuvi Raj, the 17th player during the match against Bengal, also took to social media and lambasted Vihari for making false accusations against him.

“Personal attacks and vulgar language are not acceptable in any kind of human platform.  Everyone in the team knows what happened that day,” wrote Raj on his Instagram handle.