Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA), dogged by controversies on all fronts and going through its worst phase, might well witness an unprecedented move in the form of a no-confidence motion against incumbent president Arshad Ayub.
“We strongly believe that unless there is a drastic change in his style of functioning, we have no other go,” said an agitated former Test cricketer, who also happens to be the HCA vice-president. “We have never seen a president in the past interfering in the day-to-day functioning of the class four employees also,” he said.
Last straw
“Stopping the HCA league by the president who himself has been a former Test cricketer is the last straw on the camel's back,” pointed out another EC member.
Mr. Ayub's adamant stance annoyed even Shivlal Yadav so much that he walked out of the emergency EC meeting held on the status of institutional teams. “We are in a worst possible scenario and an end has to be put to these things,” said another EC member loyal to Mr. Yadav.
But, Mr. Ayub insisted that he was only correcting “aberrations” in the HCA functioning. “I am not taking any personal decisions but only reflecting the majority opinion in the EC,” he claimed.
This stance is now being openly contested. “Everyone in the EC felt that the league need not be stopped and that Hyderabad Bottling (HB) case could be dealt with separately. Yet, he went ahead to stall the matches only to retract,” averred HCA Joint Secretary Seshadri Venkateshwaran.
Significantly, there is no clear-cut provision in the HCA constitution to impeach the president. “We cannot just go by conventions alone. For instance, there is no rule that Test cricket should be played only in whites. So, corrective moves have to be made according to the situation,” reasoned former HCA secretary P. R. Man Singh.
‘No moral right'
“In the first place, this EC has no moral right to continue in the office. There is a controversy in everything they do -- on and off the field. I always felt that the alliance between Arshad Ayub and Shivlal Yadav was going to be an unholy marriage which is bound to throw up differences. Unfortunately, the worst sufferers are the cricketers,” he bemoaned.
Mr. Man Singh reminded that in the 1986-87 season when he was the secretary, the EC had voted for successfully removing the then senior selection panel headed by M. L. Jaisimha. And, the team picked up the new panel eventually won the Ranji Trophy!
