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BCCI forms ad-hoc committees to oversee Bihar, Uttarakhand

The BCCI has formed ad-hoc committees to look after cricket administration in Bihar and Uttarakhand

Sidharth Monga
Sidharth Monga
07-Aug-2015
The Cricket Association of Bihar's Aditya Verma is the man who has repeatedly gone after the BCCI and N Srinivasan in the courts  •  The Indian Express

The Cricket Association of Bihar's Aditya Verma is the man who has repeatedly gone after the BCCI and N Srinivasan in the courts  •  The Indian Express

The BCCI has formed ad-hoc committees to look after cricket administration in Bihar and Uttarakhand. This move will ensure the states participation in BCCI's Associate and Affiliate tournaments.
The two states were without proper representation in the BCCI ever since the Indian government split some of the country's bigger states into two in the year 2000. Bihar gave up Jharkhand, which went on to earn member status in the BCCI. Uttar Pradesh yielded Uttarakhand, but the new state didn't exist for the purpose of cricket administration in the BCCI, not even as an Associate or Affiliate member.
Niranjan Shah, the former BCCI secretary and Saurashtra Cricket Association patriarch, will head the ad-hoc committee for Bihar, and MP Pandove of Punjab Cricket Association, a former BCCI treasurer, will lead the panel for Uttarakhand. The committees have five members each, with a BCCI game development officer each to act as coordinators. Ratnakar Shetty, GM - game development of the BCCI, will coordinate the Bihar committee, and KVP Rao Uttarakhand.
Since the bifurcation of the states, many different associations have claimed the right to represent Bihar and Uttarakhand, resulting in clashes but no representation. The cricketers of the states have struggled the most, looking to Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, and other neighbouring states, for chances.
"Due to infighting among different associations present in these states, aspiring cricketers of these states have to suffer for no fault of theirs," BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur said. "To ensure cricket grows in these states, the BCCI has decided to form ad-hoc committees for these states, which will function till the affiliation issues of these states are resolved. During my recent visit to Bihar, I got representations of at least 17 organisations to start cricket once again in Bihar, and similarly I've got representations of various organisations in Uttarakhand."
Bihar remains the more curious case. Not only because the new state came in and took the full-time status in the BCCI, but also because a scorned Cricket Association of Bihar (CAB) began the legal proceedings against the BCCI, which have resulted in full exposure of rampant conflict of interest in the national board. All of BCCI's legal troubles date back to a public-interest litigation filed by Aditya Verma, secretary of CAB, one of the many organisations that claim to represent cricket in Bihar. In April 2014, Verma told ESPNcricinfo there is no saying if his association would have also overlooked the issues - like most of the others - in the board if it had been given BCCI membership and the rewards that come with it.
Bihar didn't lose its membership as soon as the state was divided in 2000. It continued to represent both the states until 2003-04. MS Dhoni made his first-class debut for Bihar, and played in the last first-class season the state played, in 2003-04. When Jagmohan Dalmiya was the BCCI president, the BCCI changed the name of the Bihar Cricket Association (BCA), led at that time by controversial chief minister Laloo Prasad Yadav, to Jharkhand State Cricket Association. Soon Association of Bihar Cricket (ABC), led by former India player Kirti Azad, came up with claims that it represented the cricket of Bihar, and in 2005 settled for Associate status, as former election commissioner TS Krishnamurthy recorded when conducting the controversial BCCI elections of that year.
Two years later, the BCA suffered a bigger blow. This was when the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL) came around. Yadav was the union Railways Minister by then. The ICL was struggling for venues to play its tournament in. Yadav promised them grounds owned and maintained by the Indian Railways. The ICL tasted the BCCI's vengefulness soon, as has Bihar since. Another two years on, a third representative of the cricket of Bihar emerged, the CAB. Its secretary, Verma, has led the crusade in the courts, which has resulted in the Supreme Court intervention to suspend two IPL franchise owners with more administrative reforms awaited from the Justice Lodha panel.
Verma said it was finally a step in the right direction, but was not ready to settle for just Associate and Affiliate tournaments for his state's cricketers. "If we don't get our first-class status back in due time," he told ESPNcricinfo, "this will just be lip-service. We don't want to play just five-six Associate and Affiliate teams, we want to play against all states, starting with junior tournaments."

Sidharth Monga is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo