Visakhapatnam: There was a reason for fans of English cricketers Ben Stokes and Tymal Mills following the Indian Premier League auction on Monday in Bengaluru but for lovers of the game in Andhra Pradesh, it was a different story.
The two English cricketers managed to bag big money contracts. Fans from England finally have a lot of players to cheer for. From Andhra Pradesh, only one player has been picked in the auction.
This reflects the sad conditions of the Andhra Cricket Association (ACA) which must take the blame for having consistently failed to nurture talent and develop quality cricketers. It is also a reflection of the inappropriate utilisation of infrastructure, coaching facilities and other elements in the state.
Though ACA has been claiming that it is role model for other associations in terms of creating infrastructure and optimum use of funds, the body has failed to produce quality cricketers in terms consistency in performance.
Sympathisers call it disheartening to see Andhra players being left out of the IPL auction. It need not necessarily mean that the players are not good enough but ACA did not do enough. Cricket fans in Vizag and surrounding districts were also disappointed because Vizag will not host any match of the IPL-2017 as per the venue-list.
Four young cricketers_ explosive batsmen Ricky Bhui, Steve Stephen, D. Swaroop and P. Vijay Kumar from Andhra Pradesh are among the 350 players in the list of IPL-10 auction. But, only Ricky Bhui was retained by defending champions Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH).
He was part of the 2016 squad for SRH but did not get a chance to play a single match in the IPL-9. The other three players from Andhra were not considered by any franchise, says former Ranji player and cricket administrator of ACA, G.J.J. Raju.
Over the last couple of years, Steve Stephen, Kona Srikar Bharat, Ayyappa Bandaru, Vijay Kumar and some others have given brilliant performances. When ACA is playing shots at BCCI, everyone has high aspirations including the players.
Many administrators have secured top posts in BCCI but our cricketers were not marketed properly said a member of ACA on condition of anonymity.
According to Raju, in the absence of a system to take the game to the grassroots or with the inability to churn out fresh talent and failure to push talented players up, there will not be any occasion to be satisfied or rejoice.
