Mahim Verma's phone has not stopped ringing since Wednesday evening. After reports emerged that Cricket Association of Uttarakhand (CAU) secretary Verma and team manager Navneet Mishra have accused former India opener Wasim Jaffer and, till recently, coach of the state team, of communal bias in team selection, Verma has been busy denying them, and trying to control the damage. Apart from facing severe criticism for making such baseless allegations against Jaffer, Verma and the association are under intense scrutiny for the administration of the game in the state and the selection process.
Jaffer resigned as the Uttarakhand coach on Tuesday, citing "interference and bias of selectors and the association's secretary for non-deserving players" as the reason. His resignation just days ahead of the Vijay Hazare Trophy may not have made headlines but for these appalling communal bias charges.
Jaffer vehemently denied the allegations. "...jo communal angle lagaya (the communal angle that has been brought up), that is very, very sad," Jaffer said in a virtual press conference on Wednesday. "They levelled an allegation that I wanted to make Iqbal Abdulla as the captain, which is absolutely wrong," he asserted. In a tweet, he said he "recommended Jay Bista for captaincy not Iqbal but CAU officials favoured Iqbal".
The leading run-getter in Ranji Trophy also dismissed allegations that he brought Maulvis (Muslim religious scholars) to the team's training. "First of all they said the Maulavis came there in a bio-bubble and we offered Namaz. Let me tell you one thing, the Maulavi, Maulana, who came on two or three Fridays during the camp in Dehradun, I had not called him. It was Iqbal Abdulla who sought mine and the manager's permission only for the Friday prayer," he said.
As support for Jaffer, who had played for Mumbai and Vidarbha before taking to coaching, poured in, Verma denied that the communal bias issue was the reason for Jaffer's resignation. "I totally deny the allegation that it was the communal factor which led to his ouster. Had it been an issue, why would we have roped Jaffer in the first place as the UCA coach?" Verma said to THE WEEK. He said that even his selection committee has a diverse religious background.
When asked specifically about selection issues, Verma said the selectors wanted changes in team after a poor outing in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, where Uttarakhand managed to win only one of five matches. "The selectors were unhappy. They picked a team of 22 players then which Jaffer wasn't happy with and he quit," he said.
But the issue has put the spotlight on the CAU and its administration. Verma, who resigned as BCCI vice president to get elected as CAU secretary, is known to be close to BCCI vice president and senior Congress politician Rajeev Shukla. The latter is currently the “non-retiring” director in Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association (UPCA). Interestingly, several selectors and officials in the CAU now were with the UPCA.
Before Verma, veteran cricket administrator Amrit Mathur was the CEO of the CAU. There have been murmurs in the state cricketing circles of Verma's active involved in selection meetings, which he has denied. The selection committee and its various selections, too, have raised many eyebrows. "I do not convene selection meetings it is done by our interim CEO who came in after Mathur resigned,"said Verma. The interim CEO, Aman Singh, is a novice in cricket administration.
