Coloured clothing, white balls for HCA one-dayers

The tournament starts from Saturday and the final will be a day/night affair at the Uppal Stadium on February 13.

Hyderabad: Conducting The Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) three-day and two-day league in these Covid-19 pandemic times was indeed a dicey proposition. But against all odds and bitter criticism, joint secretary Naresh Sharma and his League Committee have so far conducted the matches successfully.

Buoyed by the success, for the first time ever, the HCA has decided to conduct the A-1 Division one-day knock-out tournament with coloured clothing, white balls and black sight screens.

The tournament starts from Saturday and the final will be a day/night affair at the Uppal Stadium on February 13. The HCA distributed 15 coloured jerseys to all the teams. The teams have been divided into four groups.

For Sharma, it is a big victory. There were a lot of apprehensions whether the league matches could be conducted because of the pandemic. It was a tough challenge for Sharma. But the league committee did a very good job in conducting the league matches successfully so far. They conducted Covid-19 tests to all the players, umpires and scorers before the delayed league matches were started in December.

“I took it as a challenge. I knew I had to take a few risks but keeping in mind about the players’ future, I went ahead with the league matches. We visited all the grounds, hired a few to conduct the matches. We ensured that there were good pitches for the matches. We sent our grounds men to a few of the hired venues. We did our homework before conducting the matches. We ensured that there was no disruption of the matches,’’ he said.

Sharma added that till now they conducted 85 three-day matches. “Each of the teams have played at least seven matches out of the ten matches. We are stopping the leagues for the one-day knock out tournament as this will serve as practice and selection trials for the possible Vijay Hazare one-day tournament. I have to thank all my league committee members, ground staff, scorers and umpires for their wonderful work,’’ he concluded.

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