Sunrisers issue: Plea to check phone data of HCA office-bearers

Former HCA secretary T Seshnarayan appeals to K Srinivas Reddy, Director General (Vigilance & Enforcement), to seek phone data of all the office-bearers during the last four weeks to ascertain SRH allegations

HYDERABAD: Former Hyderabad Cricket Association secretary T Seshnarayan appealed to K Srinivas Reddy, Director General (Vigilance & Enforcement), Government of Telangana, to seek phone data of all the office-bearers during the last four weeks to ascertain the allegations made by the Sunrisers Hyderabad.

It may be mentioned here that Sunrisers had threatened to pull out of Hyderabad on the issue of complimentary tickets for the IPL matches, which prompted the Telangana Chief Minister, A Revanth Reddy, to order an enquiry by Srinivas Reddy into the whole affair.

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“All clubs in the HCA are allotted 12 tickets each, including the Office Bearers. However, in spite of this, they are cornering Corporate Boxes from F7 to F16 as their private boxes and distributing the tickets among themselves, their families, friends and relatives and in some cases, they are also being marketed at exorbitant rates. These tickets have to be distributed among stakeholders of the Association,” Seshnarayan alleged.

“The president’s box has been created to accommodate the officials and VIPs with whom the association interacts throughout the year,” he said.

“The practice of preparing affiliation cards is basically for facilitating those who provide services, and as a gesture of goodwill during some matches, the services of club secretaries willing to offer their services were utilised free of cost. However, later on, this has been misused to facilitate entry to their own kith and kin and in some cases for members as these affiliation cards facilitate movement of the members with all access in all areas of stadium premises, which is an unhealthy practice,” Seshnarayan said.

“The first-class cricketers, former office bearers, and international players are eligible for a minimum of two non-transferable tickets for their family. They have completely ignored this, and these tickets have been cornered by office bearers. On average, the president, secretary and treasurer alone are cornering 400 to 500 tickets apart from their club tickets. It is a very unhealthy practice and it has to be put to the nexus,” he said.

“An independent agency should be appointed to monitor the issue of complimentary tickets on behalf of HCA in view of all the allegations against the current apex council,” the former secretary said.

“Some outsiders are behaving like extra-constitutional authority in the HCA and running the administration and taking arbitrary decisions even without the consent of the apex council,” he said.