Poli‘tricks’ of HCA!

Everyone wishes that sports is above politics and the Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) seems to believe in it, of course, in a different context.

The HCA is vertically divided and the two groups — one led by its president Mohd Azharuddin and the other by the rest of the office bearers — fought each other so bitterly that they did not mind washing their dirty linen in public. Azhar removed his rivals from the panel and the other group removed Azhar, but there seems to be a tacit truce between the warring groups of late, particularly during the selection of players to represent the HCA in the Under 19 national level tournaments. Amidst allegations that other factors than mere merit played a vital role in selections and against the backdrop of the warring groups trading charges of corruption earlier, the smooth selection process, which concluded a few days ago, raised many an eyebrow. Both the president and the secretary, leaving aside politics, ‘successfully’ completed the selection.

The secretary’s group seems to be in no mood to pursue the fight against Azhar despite strong ammunition in the form of the recent Telangana High Court order. As sports lovers are familiar with ‘hand of God’, the intervention of a politician of a powerful family, according to the grapevine, ensured truce. And, here too, a powerful TRS politician left her politics aside and helped Azharuddin, a Congress leader, and his ‘behind-the-screen’ supporter G. Vivek, who belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party.