Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) has written back to the Committee of Administrators (CoA) questioning the need to withdraw 16 outstation players from the tournament after (CoA) had instructed Tamil Nadu Cricket Association to release all the outstation player from the Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL).
RL Palani, the TNCA secretary has written a letter to the Committee of Administrators questioning the reason why outstation players cannot play in the tournament. The letter from the authorities states, “The Committee (CoA) has called upon the TNCA to seek approval from the BCCI to conduct the 3rd edition of the TNPL and also to confirm that the league will not field players from outside the jurisdiction of the TNCA failing which disciplinary action will be initiated against all parties concerned.
“The TNCA is advised to state that the directions contained in the email dated 5th July 2018 are without lawful authority being contrary to the constitution of the BCCI and to the decisions taken by the general body at the SGM held on 22nd June. That apart, the directions and also the advisory exhibit a complete and utter disregard of the interests of players who would be deprived of an opportunity to earn a living and would perhaps lose a valuable opportunity to showcase their talents to the world.”
“The regulations of the BCCI provide that members of BCCI are not required to seek approval for conducting tournaments within its territorial jurisdiction unless the tournament involves players from outside such jurisdiction.
“As regards the interpretation of the term jurisdiction used in the regulations, we reiterate our contention (as conveyed in earlier communications) that if a player registers himself with a member temporarily, such player would be deemed to be within the jurisdiction of the member. As you are aware it has always been the practice of for players to register themselves with multiple members subject that they can only represent one member in BCCI administered tournaments,” it read.
“We have indicated several instances, in our earlier letters, of players representing one member for BCCI Tournaments and the same players participating in tournaments organized by other members provided that the members inter se had no objection. BCCI’s approval was never required or sought in any of those instances.”
The letter further stated that there have been outstation players playing in TNCA leagues over the years. “Currently, the TNCA league has several "outstation" players playing within its jurisdiction and this has been so for several decades. Eminent former crickets such as Sunil Gavaskar, MAK Pataudi, Salim Durrani, ML Jaishimha, GR Vishwanath have played in TNCA tournaments. Likewise players like Rahul Dravid, Zaheer Khan, Venkatesh Prasad, Vikram Rathore, Venkatapathy Raju, Arshad Hyub, Suith Somasundar have continued to play till recently. Even currently players like Piyush Chawla, Sandeep Sharma, Robin Bist, Shiker Bharath, AG Pradeep play in league tournaments organised by TNCA. We fail to understand how COA can seek to prevent uncapped young players from participating in this tournament and showcase their talent,” it said.
The letter from TNCA secretary hopes CoA will consider the desire of players and refrain from interfering with their participation in the TNPL.
(Inputs from Cricketnext)
