Hyderabad Cricket Association Presidential contestant Mohammad Azharuddin

 Telangana | Written by : Suryaa Desk Updated: Tue, Sep 24, 2019, 04:03 PM

Hyderabad: The pretenders are out, and the contenders in. Contests for five of the six posts will be three-cornered while it will be a straight fight for the vice-president’s post as the final list of candidates in fray for the Hyderabad Cricket Association’s elections scheduled for Friday was put up on Monday after multiple candidates, who had filed nominations for multiple posts, withdrew their papers.


Former HCA secretary John Manoj and executive committee member Daljeet Singh will square up to garner 114 votes out of a total of 226 to occupy the vice-president’s chair.


Of the votes, 155 are held by private clubs, 51 by institutional clubs, 9 with district associations and 11 are to be cast by former international players — M. V. Narasimha Rao, N. Shivlal Yadav, Arshad Ayub, Mohammed Azharuddin, S. L. Venkatapathi Raju, VVS Laxman, Noel David (men), S. Rajani Venugopal, P. Diana David, Sandra Braganza and Purnima Rau (women).


Among the players, Azharuddin is running for president with former vice-president Prakash Chand Jain and K. Dilip Kumar chasing him.


J. Shivaji Yadav is the other player in fray. The former Ranji Trophy cricketer and Income Tax representative is locked in a fight with former treasurer Naresh Kumar Sharma and Satish Chandra Srivastava for the joint secretary’s job.


It’s a triangular fight for the secretary’s job as well, with former joint secretaries R. Vijayanand, S. Venkateshwaran and ex-executive committee member R. M. Bhaskar in fray.


There are three in the race to control the finances too. Former vice-president Surender Kumar Agarwal is up against sitting councillor K. Hanmanth Reddy and former executive committee member C. Babu Rao for the Treasurer’s post.


P. Anuradha is the lone woman contestant in the male dominated field. She is pitted against Ravinder Singh and Vinod Kumar for the Councillor’s post.


There are just four women voters among the 215 representatives of clubs and district associations besides the four who qualify as international cricketers.


While canvassing is still on at a frenetic pace with the focus largely on City and suburbs, the voice of the districts is rooting for Azhar to lead the HCA. “Having played the game at the top level for so long, Azhar understands cricketers and their problems better than anyone else. We hope players from the rural areas will benefit from it,” says Sunil Babu Kolanpaka, secretary of Cricket Association of Telangana, which works to promote the game in the districts.


“HCA has mostly been in the news for large scale corrupt practices, evident from the ACB cases and it needs people like C. Babu Rao (treasurer aspirant), who has been fighting to clean the system,” he added.