NCA chairman Shah hits out at BCCI secretary

With the Indian cricket board (BCCI) doing little for developing the infrastructure of the game for over three years now, National Cricket Academy (NCA) chairman Niranjan Shah has got into a tiff with acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary over NCA.

Shah, who is disqualified as an office-bearer as per Lodha recommendations, has written to Choudhary citing that the board has kept a lot of issues pending pertaining to the NCA and questioned the appointment of NCA's chief operating officer (COO) Tufan Joshi.

"BCCI has intentionally avoided inviting me to chair recent meetings of NCA and some important decisions have been taken in my absence, including appointing Tufan Ghosh as COO," Shah wrote. Ghosh assumed office on January 2. Ghosh's appointment has put an uncertainty on former India captain Dilip Vengsarkar's role as the director of NCA.

"I request BCCI to call a meeting of NCA as I, the chairman of NCA, feel that there insurgent need to review some of the decisions taken in recent meetings and also address all pending issues," the letter stated.

NCA has been left unattended and several programmes are not being monitored.

Shah also wrote that the board has invited chairmen of committees and sub-committees, including IPL, to chair meetings despite those officials being disqualified as office-bearers of state associations. The letter comes just days after Choudhary and BCCI CEO Rahul Johri announced Afghanistan's inaugural Test against India to be held in Bengaluru in June. Senior functionaries claimed the duo didn't keep them in the loop.