Neeraj Kumar is a former commissioner of the Delhi Police and has also served in the Central Bureau of Investigation. In A Cop in Cricket, Kumar writes of his stint as the head of the Anti-Corruption and Security Unit, or ACSU, at the Board of Control for Cricket in India. Kumar recounts the rot the unit found within Indian cricket—nepotism and corruption in selections, an unwavering focus on commerce that propped up match fixing, and grave allegations of sexual harassment and abuse. In the following extract from the book, Kumar recounts a shocking complaint that came before him—it concerned incidents of corruption and child sexual abuse at the district cricket association in Haryana’s Mahendragarh.
Every enquiry that the ACSU conducted during my three-year tenure opened our eyes to a new facet of cricket mismanagement, one more sordid than the other. More often than not, each enquiry would open a new can of worms, raising a stink more putrid than the previous one. It always brought to the fore shocking fault lines in the administration of the game, begging to be addressed by someone down the line, someone who would care to look into the plight of young cricketers at the grassroots level, being exploited in more ways than one. One such probe we carried out, following a complaint by the BCCI, was in Mahendragarh in Haryana in October 2017. It blew the lid off the mess that goes on in the name of district cricket administration in most states of India. It commenced with the complaint of Pankaj Yadav, then an eighteen-year-old cricketer, who alleged that the head coach of the Mahendragarh District Cricket Association had demanded money from players who wanted to be on the district team.
Anshuman Upadhyay of the ACSU was directed to look into the matter. The enquiry officer first spoke to the complainant over the phone and soon realised that the issues involved were far more serious than a simple demand for money. He decided to visit Mahendragarh and probe the matter a little deeper. His enquiries disclosed shocking details of the workings of the district-level cricket administration. The secretary of the Mahendragarh District Cricket Association then was a man named Kishori Lal, a brick kiln owner. He was totally clueless about the game of cricket and had outsourced the running of the show to a local readymade garments shop owner, Praveen Tivadi, who took all decisions on behalf of Lal. Tivadi was the coach, selector and administrator, all rolled into one. He allowed players from other districts to play for Mahendragarh after taking huge sums of money. He had three middlemen—Kuldeep, Bheem and Raju—who got players from outside to join the district team for a hefty consideration, leaving the local players high and dry.
Pankaj Yadav, the complainant, a talented and deserving cricketer, was ignored year after year on one specious ground or another. Tivadi was infamous for not informing his district cricketers when they were selected for state-level trials. Many a hugely talented local cricketer lost out in the bargain.
No cricketer from Mahendragarh, thanks to the shenanigans of Tivadi who never informed them of the trials, had played for Haryana in the last ten years or so. A man named Dinesh Kumar from Narnaul assisted Pravin Tivadi in the management of district cricket—whether it was selection, fitness training, organisation of matches or any other cricket-related activity. Kumar’s prominent role in the district administration set-up allowed him access to young teenagers aspiring to play for the district team.
Anshuman’s enquiries revealed that Dinesh Kumar demanded sexual favours from the youngsters if they wished to get a chance to play for the district. We had heard of similar complaints in the past from different places but now we had a concrete case before us. The findings of the Mahendragarh enquiry are perhaps emblematic of the malaise that prevails at the grassroots level in Indian cricket.
The state cricket associations, themselves dens of corruption and mismanagement, preside over district set-ups where they appoint their own stooges who are neither qualified nor competent to promote the game in any manner. Such nominees are usually relatives or employees of the big boss at the state association; they are placed in districts only for their votes in the state-level elections.
No one knows whether state associations share the grants they receive from the BCCI every year with their district associations. If yes, how are these funds utilised? Are any accounts maintained? Is there transparency in how coaching camps or selections are conducted? Who supervises them? If the reports submitted by Deloitte, an internationally reputed audit company, with respect to state cricket associations are anything to go by, one can only extrapolate what must be happening at the district level. Well, money misspent or misappropriated is one thing, but the hardships and the heartbreaks of young cricketing talent at the base level are quite another.
The worst part was that the BCCI CEO and [the BBCI’s Committee of Administrators] chief took no action when the enquiry report was sent to them. I often reminded them both about our findings, but every time they feigned complete ignorance of the report. They would say, “We don’t recall having seen your report.” I would send the report again, and the same response would follow whenever I tried to follow up with them.
To cite one example, on 7 March 2018, I sent the following mail to the CEO [Rahul Johri] with a copy to Vinod Rai [the head of the CoA]:
Dear Rahul,
As discussed on 5 Mar aboard a flight from Delhi to Mumbai, a report sent earlier on ACSU enquiries into the affairs of district level cricket at Mahendragarh, Haryana on 3 Nov 2017 is being resent for your perusal and suitable necessary action.
Best,
Neeraj Kumar
Quite expectedly, nothing was done either by the CEO or the CoA on receipt of this mail. It was for them to take up this serious matter, where our enquiry had disclosed demand of sexual favors from young kids, with the Haryana Cricket Association (HCA). Since the aspiring cricketers did not wish to approach the police, the least that the two honchos ought to have done was to write to the HCA, but nothing of the sort happened. It soon became clear to me that I was barking up the wrong tree. I realised that nothing would ever come out of these reports. The powers that be were not interested in going into such fundamental issues that involved a state cricket association. The indifference was understandable to a certain extent when it came to Rahul Johri. Perhaps any employee of the Board would think a thousand times before taking on the Haryana cricket chief ? But what made Vinod Rai look the other way? Perhaps the idea was to let the status quo prevail and make merry while the fun lasted.
This is an extract from A Cop in Cricket, by Neeraj Kumar, published by Juggernaut Books in 2023.