HCA’s Saturday night drama

The sudden removal of Anirudh Singh as chief coach by secretary R Vijayanand without the knowledge of a few Apex Council members, including president Mohammad Azharuddin, has caused chaos and confusion

Hyderabad: The controversy-ridden Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) was again in the news for all the wrong reasons. This time the selection for Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament provided the ingredients of a Saturday night masala drama. The sudden removal of Anirudh Singh as chief coach by secretary R Vijayanand without the knowledge of a few Apex Council members, including president Mohammad Azharuddin, has caused chaos and confusion. A sense of sanity was restored late last night with Azharuddin reportedly calling Anirudh and telling him to join the team in the bio-bubble at Green Park hotel even though there is no official communication from HCA whether the former Ranji left-handed batsman has been reinstated as chief coach or not.

Incidentally, the Apex Council had reportedly requested Anirudh to manage the team for the Mushtaq Ali tournament and has been part of the selection process during the trial matches. Then late in the night a shocker from HCA, signed by Vijayanand, said Zakir Hussain, who had a poor outing as under-23 coach last season, will be the chief coach. According to sources, Vijayanand took this decision without consulting any of the other Apex Council members. Later, he said that after getting some clarification of the HCA constitution by-laws, Anirudh Singh was reappointed as the head coach of the Hyderabad team.

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Sadly, the poor handling of the administration and the murky affairs in HCA has become the butt of jokes. The ad-hoc selection committee of Shivaji Yadav, Ahmed Quadri and Abhinav Kumar fell foul with a few club secretaries alleging that the deserving players like Jaweed Ali, Mehdi Hasan, to name a few, were overlooked for the T20 tournament.

Incidentally, the experienced Hasan was one of the leading performers for Hyderabad in the shorter format of the game. In the trial matches, conducted by HCA, the left-arm spinner took seven wickets (4+3) from two matches and even led Azharuddin XI. But when the team was announced he was shockingly omitted. In his place, Hitesh Yadav, who was initially not in the probables list, was named in the team.

Team Hyderabad is placed in Group B and will play their league matches in Kolkata. The tournament is scheduled to start from January 10. In fact, the probables list raised a few eyebrows with a few underperformers being in three different teams. Former international and State selector Noel David said there were a few shocking omissions and selections in the team. “How can we have four wicketkeepers in the T20 tournament? There is no leg-spinner or off-spinner. There are a few names who were picked in the team without any big performances while some deserving players were ignored,” said David.

Former HCA secretary T Shesh Narayan said the administration has gone from bad to worse. “There are serious issues of conflict of interests as per the Lodha Committee reforms. The office bearers from whose team players are representing the State team stand disqualified from holding their posts as per our own registered by-laws. I will go to the court of law on this point,” he said.

Hyderabad’s preparation to the T20 tournament has started on a wrong note with no proper planning. With players being confined to rooms for the next five days in Green Park hotel here and then for another few days in Kolkata, it is a big test to the coaching staff to motivate the players.

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