DDCA Fiasco: The peculiar shifting of stadiums and changing of opponent for South Africa tour match

The Kotla ground where South Africa were initially scheduled to face the Delhi Ranji team

For a while now Indian cricket has been at the crossroads; from teams getting suspended in the IPL to the untimely demise of its president, the famed body in-charge of the game in the state, BCCI has been in a state of shambles. Add to that issues pertaining to the individual state associations, and it will be seen that cricket in our country exists in an extremely murky state, one which no aficionado would want to be a part of.

These same inefficiencies also apply to the capital’s federation for administrating cricket, the DDCA. On a localised level, it provides us a closer look at the secretive way of governing and running the game in our country.

Albeit the announcement of retaining Gautam Gambhir as captain for the next season, everything else seems to be unclear. Why were seniors like Virender Sehwag and Mithun Manhas let go of? Who will be coaching the team in the upcoming season, will it be Vijay Dahiya or will Ajay Jadeja continue? These are some of the pertinent questions that the DDCA has been avoiding for quite some time now.

Was told two days ago that match was off: Delhi cricketer

The latest addition to this warped list is the handling of the South Africa practice match. The Proteas as we know are landing soon in the capital for their 3-month tour and are going to play a match here on the 29th of this month. Initially scheduled against the Delhi team at Ferozeshah Kotla, it was recently shifted to Palam A ground. What hasn't been cleared though, is whether despite the change in venue, will the visitors still play the Delhi team or as reports suggest, will it be the Board Presidents XI who will take the field against them in a weeks time.

Reaching out to the Air Force Sports Control Board, who are in charge of the Palam ground, we were told that they still don't know if the DDCA will field a team or not. In fact, this source pointed out a change on the BCCI itinerary which says “TBA” (To be announced) for the team which will feature in the tie.

Perplexed as we were, we reached out to a player from the Delhi squad, who on the condition of being not named, shed light on the situation, “ We have no idea what's going on. It’s in fact extremely unfair that neither our coaches nor our selectors are clear about the happenings and that's extremely sad.

I was looking forward to playing against South Africa later this month but two days back, I was told that might not happen. Needless to say, we are all really disappointed.”

As he mentions, ‘disappointing’ is the state that the association and its affairs are in, currently. Here’s hoping though that they sort matters internally soon and at least we have a proper team take on the likes of Steyn, De Villiers and Amla on the 29th.