Turf war between 2 state cricket bodies on

Patna: The tussle between

Bihar Cricket Association

(BCA) and Cricket Association of Bihar (CAB) is not yet over with both claiming that they are selecting state players for Ranji Trophy to be held in September.

Incidentally, Bihar would be playing national level championships, including Ranji Trophy matches, after 18 years following the creation of Jharkhand out of the state and the recent Supreme Court directive to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to allow Bihar to play in its tournaments.

While CAB secretary Aditya Verma on Friday claimed there is no affiliated and authorized body of the BCCI functional in Bihar, BCA secretary Ravi Shankar Singh said there is no dispute regarding the authorization of state body. “We have the BCCI letter which clearly states that Bihar will play the Ranji Trophy and other domestic tournaments under the aegis of the BCA,” Singh said and added, “BCCI has cancelled the permissions to allot stadiums to any other association, except BCA. No stadium in the state can be availed by any association except the BCA before the selection for Ranji Trophy is done.” Addressing a press conference here on Friday, Verma said until the dispute of authorized state body is not resolved completely, BCCI should come up with an ad hoc committee for selecting the final players from Bihar for Ranji Trophy. Verma claimed even the Supreme Court order mentions the “State of Bihar shall be conferred with all the benefits to play the matches”.

Incidentally, BCA has already started the process of selecting teams for the state Ranji Trophy, Under-16, Under-19, Under-23 and other senior category tournaments. The selection process is scheduled to conclude in June.

Verma said, “Matches of 45 overs will be played between Narayan-XI, Shekhar Sinha-XI, Ajay Jha-XI and Ramesh Saxena-XI comprising players from all the 38 districts of Bihar at Urja Stadium in Patna on May 10. As many as 30 players will be selected for conditioning camp where they will be trained by coaches. This will be followed by the final selection made by the BCCI.”