Straight Bat: ‘Commercialisation of game dents its progress’

HCA Gymkhana ground is an amazing place with a near perfect cricketing environment and all the facilities available to learn the game

By Vijay Mohan Raj

Hyderabad: I am a regular visitor to the cricket ground every morning. Although at present I am not involved with coaching, selection or any allied cricketing activity the habit of waking up early in the morning and going to the cricket ground near home in Secunderabad since the past forty years continues with the same enthusiasm.

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The HCA Gymkhana ground is an amazing place with a near perfect cricketing environment and all the facilities available to learn the game with all the ingredients to house a Cricket Academy of Excellence.

At this place and in 1984 I had offered my services to coach the aspiring young cricketers who were provided this facility free of cost. This facility was available even earlier where in senior coaches M/s Bhupathy and Eddie Aibara ran a coaching camp for several years.

At that time this was a unique facility offered by the Hyderabad Cricket Association as there were no academies and private coaching available elsewhere. There were several financially challenged parents who brought their children to the above facilities and to ensure that there was least burden in such cases all requirements for the children to play the game was provided.

At the start of the 21st century cricket at the international level started to become commercial and consequently the State cricket associations started to get substantial grants from the Board of Control for Cricket in India. This was a happy phase and the HCA also started to devise schemes that would be directed to development of the game at all levels. The Hyderabad Academy of Excellence at the Gymkhana formation was a consequence partly of this plan of development.

All these initiatives were welcome except that the academy was restricted to selected players who would represent the State at various levels and eliminated the previous facilities offered to those who were financially challenged and still developing into State level players.

In the master plan of development of the academy there was a vision of creating centers for unearthing talent and providing coaching in other parts of the city and in districts of Telangana. This did not happen.

Instead, there was introduced a concept called specialised coaching which was efficiently coined by several entrepreneurs who saw the potential of cricket as a money spinner. This has resulted in the mushrooming of cricket academies.

All of the above has coincided with the political upheaval in the HCA that has for the past five years dislocated or brought to a virtual standstill all development of the game. The so called entrepreneurs are having a field day and have not only tied up with the academies but also broker with the cricket teams participating in the league to enable players to play the game at all levels at a cost.

Hyderabad teams at all levels have performed below par and while there could be many reasons I believe that a large number of under privileged children have been sidelined.

-The writer is a former Hyderabad and Mumbai Ranji Trophy Player