Unique ways to influence Delhi team selection as DDCA watches

Delhi’s cricket administrators are taking unprecedented steps to influence selection and push their own players into various teams from the backdoor, by arm-twisting. A few days ago, a powerful coalition partner in the ruling Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) dispensation allegedly unethically recorded private conversations of people who criticised selection policies and made it viral on social media.

The root cause of this method was to silence the critics who questioned the selection/omission of certain players and the sending of inflated teams, much against the established norms and numbers fixed by the Indian cricket board, and slip their own players into teams through “blackmail”, as someone chose to describe the act.

One affected person, whose conversation was about the omissions and commissions of selections, is a very old DDCA member. “The recording was then apparently played to DDCA president Rohan Jaitley as a complaint to silence the critic and push his own players into teams by creating pressure,” said the affected person in a message he circulated among the DDCA members to caution them.

The DDCA member has thus made it a point to let everyone know in the DDCA that his conversation was recorded illegally. In his letter to Jaitley, he said: “I’m writing to share something I’ve come across personally. It appears that a few DDCA officials, along with some senior members, have been involved in the illegal recording of telephone conversations. This is a serious breach of privacy and an illegal act that goes against the spirit of fair play we all cherish.”

Creating more pressure

On the other hand, the same coalition group, which has five elected directors in the 12-member DDCA apex council, complained to Jaitley about the top employees, like the acting CEO, Chief Financial Officer, and the legal advisor, for unilaterally taking decisions, ignoring the council. They have reportedly sent the signed complaint to Jaitley and also circulated it on social media to build pressure.

It seems the motive of this complaint was again selection-related. “The letter may be largely on the financial issues, but the real motive is point No. 5 in the letter: selection of the Delhi under-16 team. This is a way of putting pressure on those who influence the selection of teams, and they may not necessarily be the selectors,” a senior DDCA member told Patriot.

Inflated squads

This domestic season, in which Delhi teams are again performing poorly, the DDCA has been sending inflated squads to all BCCI-organised national tournaments. For instance, for the ongoing T20 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, a 25-member squad was sent to Ahmedabad. Then, when leg-spinner Suyash Sharma got injured and was supposedly ruled out of the game against Saurashtra on November 30, a 27th member, leg-spinner Digvesh Rathi, was rushed from Delhi.

Eventually, both leg-spinners played – a rare and unusual happening – against Saurashtra. Interestingly, Suyash regained fitness and emerged as the best Delhi bowler with three wickets and also won the Man of the Match award as Delhi won by 10 runs.

After four matches, Delhi was lying fourth in its eight-team group, and it now looks difficult for it to progress to the next round. Only the top two teams from the four groups qualify for the next round.