Patna: The Bihar cricket team arrived at Patna’s Moin-ul-Haq stadium Friday for a Ranji Trophy match against Mumbai, and so did the Bihar cricket team. That is, two groups, each claiming to be the state’s official team, had shown up.
Chaos ensued, with a bit of skirmishing that saw an officer on special duty being injured, before the police ejected one of the teams from the ground and the match — Bihar’s first match in the elite group of the Ranji Trophy since its separation from Jharkhand — got off to a late start.
Behind all this lies a power struggle in the Bihar Cricket Association (BCA), with one team having been selected by BCA president Rakesh Kumar Tiwary and the other by Amit Kumar, who alleges that he was illegally removed from the post of BCA secretary. Kumar’s team was the one that was kicked out by the police Friday.
ThePrint has a copy of a letter signed by Kumar with a list of players selected for the team. It gives an address in Patna’s Kadamkuan locality and a set of contact details for the association and its secretary — not the same as the official address in Patliputra Colony. There are even two different websites, https://biharcricketassociations.com and https://biharcricketassociation.com. Although both name Tiwary as the association’s president, the former says Amit Kumar is the secretary while the latter says Ziaul Arefin holds the post.
A person formerly associated with the BCA told ThePrint on condition of anonymity that the association had always been embroiled in controversy. “There are still many cases going on among the office-bearers of the association. Besides, there is also a fight for supremacy going on. Rakesh Kumar Tiwary’s position is still strong in the association because most of the office-bearers are his own men. The Amit Kumar (faction) — right now, they are isolated.”
When ThePrint spoke to Kumar, he accused Tiwary of running a “dictatorship”. He said, “This dispute has been going on for almost a year. The turmoil has been going on since the association elections. The three representatives of Bihar Cricket Association are not representatives of any district association but have been given the post illegally. The names of all the office-bearers were announced on 3 October 2022 and the very next day, Rakesh Kumar Tiwary called a meeting as acting secretary. In the last session (last year), ignoring the constitution, he removed the secretary from the post. Then the joint secretary got the post of acting secretary, but they fired him too. And he took the entire power of the secretary to himself illegally. When I called a meeting after the elections, the BCA president did not attend the meeting.”
The elections Kumar refers to were held on 3 October 2022 and he was dismissed from his post by the BCA ombudsman on 4 June 2023 on account of “misconduct and irresponsible behaviour” on a petition filed by the association.
ThePrint tried to contact Tiwary but he did not answer the phone. However, BCA spokesperson Sanjeev Kumar Mishra rejected Kumar’s allegations. “Amit Kumar has nothing to do with the Bihar Cricket Association. He was earlier the secretary of the association but has been removed from the post by the BCA ombudsman court. Now he has nothing to do with this institution; he is just provoking people. The Bihar Cricket Association means Rakesh Tiwary. We are recognised by the BCCI. Rakesh Tiwary’s team is the official cricket team of Bihar.”
The Indian Express quoted Tiwary as saying, “We have picked the team on merit and that is the right team,” and that Kumar’s team “can’t be the real team”.
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‘Illegal’ withdrawal of money
Speaking to ThePrint, Kumar also accused Tiwary of the illegal withdrawal of Rs 26 crore. “According to our constitution, withdrawal of money has to be done with the signatures of the treasurer and secretary, but the withdrawal of money is being done with the signatures of the president and the treasurer, which is illegal. Gym and infrastructure work was to be done with this money but not a single work was done. This money was used to form a gang, and cricket was turned into a business,” he said.
“These people together do all the fake work and the BCCI indirectly supports them. In our constitution, the responsibility of taking decisions for all these things has been given to the secretary. Even if we take the BCCI, our parent body, can Roger Binny (BCCI president) there remove Jay Shah (BCCI secretary) from his post? So, how can these people remove us?”
Mishra dismissed these allegations, saying, “The BCA is an organisation authorised by the BCCI to conduct cricket in Bihar. They are spreading nothing but confusion among the players of Bihar. BCA is a completely clean organisation. There’s no organisation as clean as the BCA among all of India’s cricket boards. We work with complete transparency and in accordance with BCCI rules. It is meaningless to talk about corruption. Amit Kumar has become mentally unwell. Ever since he was fired, he has been saying one thing or another.”
BCA and the Ranji Trophy
Before Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar in 2000, the Cricket Association of Bihar (CAB) was the body controlling cricket in the undivided state. The BCA and the Jharkhand State Cricket Association (JSCA) were created as its successors in 2001, with only the JSCA being granted BCCI affiliation by its newly elected president, Jagmohan Dalmiya, and being allowed to continue playing in the Ranji Trophy, while the BCA lost its affiliation. It was eventually reinstated in 2016.
In 2016, in accordance with the recommendations of the Lodha Committee, all state boards were given voting rights in the BCCI Annual General Meeting (AGM) and were asked to participate in all major first-class competitions. After this, along with Bihar, Uttarakhand, Pondicherry, Sikkim, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram and Meghalaya were all given a chance to play in the Ranji Trophy.
This year, Bihar is playing in the Ranji Trophy’s elite group for the first time after its separation from Jharkhand. It was the team’s 220-run victory over Manipur in the plate group’s final last year that secured it a place in the elite group this time.
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