20-Jul-2009 83
Orissa Cricket Association (OCA) seems to be getting clever day by day. In the name of development of cricket in the state, it has been announcing projects, schemes and competitions at regular intervals. But bungling money and controlling power are appearing to be the real intention behind every move.
The state body today named as many as 51 probables for composition of state senior (Ranji) and under-22 teams for the season 2009-10. The probables, who have been divided into two batches, would join fitness camps to be conducted at Orissa Cricket Academy in Cuttack from July 26 to August 11 and from August 15 to 31.
Now analyse OCA`s performance on the above two activities. In the name of fitness camp, 51 probables will be in the State
Academy for a month. Their lodging, boarding will cost in lakhs. Inside source say that OCA backed catering, accommodation and many more agencies will be better gainer than the probables out of the fitness camp.
Earlier, Orissa was producing more international cricketers without any facility. Now a days, Orissa players are not getting a berth even in the zonal sides in spite of being provided with so much of opportunities.
This is because the lion`s share of OCA`s resources is consumed by a group of people, controlling power through unfair means. Also remember that, OCA is earning around 20 to 30 crores every year and there is no way the public can know about how the money is being spent.
Today, OCA also announced to set up zonal and district level academies on the line of the state academy at eight places of the state. Venues tentatively selected are: Cuttack (Prachi Stadium, Adaspur), Balasore (Permit ground), Sambalpur (Dhruv Pandove Stadium), Phulbani, Koraput (Jeypore Stadium, Jeypore), Puri, Kalahandi (LBS Stadium, Bhawanipatna) and Angul.
‘‘Setting up of district level academies will be taken up two years after zonal academies. The state body would spend Rs 1 crore for each zonal academy and Rs 25 lakhs for each district academy,’’ OCA secretary Ashirbad Behera said.
But when analysed, the academy project seemed to another money-minting move. For example, OCA named Dhruv Pandove Stadium as one eight venues for zonal academy. But it did not know that no stadium in this name exists in Sambalpur. It is an insult for Western Orissa that OCA is mis-identifying Vira Surendra Sai Stadium as Dhruv Pandove Stadium.
Secondly, according to OCA`s judgement, Bhubaneswar has no place to set up a zonal academy. And according to OCA judgement, a play ground of a private engineering college in a little-known place like Adaspur in Cuttack district is an ideal place for such project.
Though OCA announced eight venues for zonal academies, it actually named only five. The rest three were identified as district stadiums. Go deeper, you will find many more skeletons in the OCA cupboard.
Come on OCA. Prove your ability by fecilitating Orissa players` entry into National teams. Otherwise, setting up academies, conducting fitness camps, felicitating politicians and making merry on public money will have no meaning.
PROBABLES FOR STATE RANJI AND U-22 TEAMS:
First batch: Samir Mohanty, Natraj Behera, Bikash Pati, Paresh Patel, Haladhar Das, Niranjan Behera, Subit Biswal, Rakesh Mohanty, Partha Patnaik, Basant Mohanty, Preetamjit Das, Sukanta Khatua, Bibhudutta Panda, Santosh Jena, Deepak Behera, Alok Pradhan, Dheeraj Singh, Neeraj Besra, Ansuman Gope, Debasis Mohanty, Sayed Zaki, P Jayachandra, Rajesh Beuria, P R Sinha, Sandip Mulia, Prasant Sahu.
Second batch: Sambit Rout, Subhrajit Sahu, Rashmi Ranjan Das, Atish Jena, Pravanjan Mullick, Biplab Samantaray, Rajesh Sethi, Santosh Sethi, Satyen C Mohanty, Sayed Moinuddin, Abhilash Mallick, Rupak Pradhan, Asmit Rout, Alok Mangaraj, Alok Sahu, Tapendra Singh, Anand Sahu, Anil Behera, Niranjan Behera, Roshan Swain, Mohammad Azhar, Lagnajit Samal, Govind Poddar, Sanjib Barik, Shiv Sundar Das.
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