With just a fortnight left to the start of the new season, trouble is brewing in the Delhi & District Cricket Association (DDCA), with Kirti Azad, the face of the cricket improvement committee (CIC), threatening to resign.
His grouse is that the DDCA has ignored most of the names the CIC recommended for the selection panels of domestic teams.
The DDCA ad-hoc committee, on Thursday, announced selection committees for the Ranji Trophy, under-22, under-19, under-16 and women’s side, but included only a handful of people, who were recommended by the CIC.
Criticising the step, Azad told HT: “We have been stabbed in the back. The DDCA has a habit of spitting and licking. Most of the names we recommended are not there. They didn’t even inform us.”
The CIC had earlier objected to several names in the selection committees, including that of Chetan Chauhan, chairman of the Ranji selection committee, Sanjeev Sharma, assistant Ranji coach, and Amit Bhandari, under-22 chief coach, to name a few.
Azad claimed the step had been taken appease various sections, keeping in mind the elections next month.
{{/usCountry}}Azad claimed the step had been taken appease various sections, keeping in mind the elections next month.
{{/usCountry}}“I have learnt a lot about the difference in deed and action, from all of you in the DDCA management, of how to keep each other happy, when the elections are near and if cricket is damned in the bargain, so be it,” Azad wrote in an email to Sneh Bansal, DDCA general secretary.
Azad also raised the issue of corruption in the DDCA, questioning the non-payment of property tax worth R4.62 crore to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi.
When contacted, Bansal said the best possible candidates had been chosen.