Uttarakhand Ranji team recently suffered a crushing 725-run defeat by Mumbai in the quarterfinals of the Ranji Trophy 2022 on Thursday (June 9). With this victory, Mumbai broke the world of winning by the highest margin in first-class cricket, but another shocking thing happened to the players of Uttarakhand.
The state team players of Uttarakhand are given a daily allowance of only Rs 100, which is 8 times less than what they should be given as per the government allowance. According to News9, the daily allowance for a senior cricketer is Rs 1,500 and the figure could go as low as Rs 1,000. It can also go up to Rs 2,000 but players from Uttarakhand are being given Rs 100 as DA for the last 12 months.
According to the Uttarakhand Cricket Association’s audit report, Rs 1,74,07,346 for food and catering and Rs 49,58,750 for daily allowance have been reported as ‘tournament and trial camp expenses’. Notably, the report suggests spending Rs 35 lakh for bananas and Rs 22 lakh for water bottles.
When a senior UTK Ranji team player asked the manager about the outstanding dues, his reply was: “Hey, why keep asking these questions again and again, brother? Lijiye, na (Why do you keep asking the same question? Order it on Swiggy-Zomato till you get the money).”
The BCCI is considered the richest cricket board with millions of dollars involved in the IPL. However, the other side of Indian cricket is shocking. Uttarakhand is the first-class team of Ranji Trophy and its professional cricketers get 100 INR (250 PKR) allowance per day. Sad case!!
— ameeq ur rahman (@ameequrrahman) June 10, 2022
However, this could be one of many shocking truths behind the scenes. There have also been allegations of corruption, physical and mental abuse, along with the hiring of several suspicious people in the state’s cricket association.
In such a messy situation, how is it fair to expect players to compete with winning hopes while they are not getting even minimum support from their state association.