Shillong, Sep 22: Never before has the Meghalaya Cricket Association been in the kind of mess that it has created for itself today.
With a little more than a fortnight to go before the start of the full gamut of BCCI domestic tournaments, the MCA remains ruptured, with one faction led by its President, James PK Sangma MP, and the other comprising the bulk of the Apex Council.
This rift is several months old and TSR has covered it extensively over the period. Where we are right now is that each side is holding separate trial camps for the upcoming tournaments and this has the potential to be ruinous for the state’s performance in 2026-27.
Take the senior men’s trials (though a comparable situation exists for all the other age groups, men and women). The second round of Sangma trials are taking place in Delhi (pictured), where they began on 10th September and will run until 5th October. A first round of Apex Council trials was held in Shillong recently, with 32 shortlisted players to go through a second round of selection between 25th and 27th September. Meghalaya’s Ranji Trophy campaign is set to begin on 11th October against Sikkim.
As the Sangma faction is supported by only three or four affiliated district associations, the Apex Council trials have witnessed more players take part. Interestingly, however, several top players from the Shillong Cricket Association (which is no fan of Sangma at the moment) have gone to Delhi. These include Akash Kumar Choudhary, Himan Phukan and Md Nafees Siddique.
Look at who’s gone where and you’ll find that the Apex Council players (including Kishan Lyngdoh and Arpit Bhatewara) are stronger in the batting department, while the more experienced bowlers (Akash, Chengkam Sangma and Dippu Sangma) have gone to the Sangma trials.
Which side prevails depends on an ongoing case in the Meghalaya High Court; the next hearing will be today, Tuesday. Whoever wins, it would seem incumbent on them to include players from the rival trials otherwise Meghalaya’s Ranji team will have an imbalance, either in batting or bowling.
One hopes that good sense wins out in the end, though what we’ve seen so far makes that a little doubtful. So ridiculous is the situation that both the Sangma faction and the Apex Council faction upload their own posts to the same MCA social media handles, which, to any casual observer unfamiliar with the divide, might seem like a case of split personality.
Other than Delhi, the Sangma faction has made its home in the new indoor training facility in Bhoirymbong, where it held trials for U-19 and U-23 men and women over the past few days. The Apex Council faction had theirs again in Shillong.
The anti-Sangma faction has argued in several missives to the BCCI that the MCA President is effectively trying to run the entire show on his own when decision-making should be collectively taken through the Apex Council. Sangma will, of course, have his own explanation on this. What the BCCI makes of the MCA’s problems we don’t know as it has so far kept officially mum, perhaps waiting for the court to deliver its verdict. However, when last he spoke to the media on the subject (back in June), Sangma said that the BCCI had its hands full with more important matters than an internal dispute in a small state like Meghalaya.
Nevertheless the Apex Council faction has been trying to get the BCCI’s attention. Although the mess in the MCA precluded the state’s participation in last week’s BCCI annual general meeting, MCA Honorary Secretary Rayonald Kharkamni did travel to Mumbai at the same time. BCCI Secretary Devajit Saikia posted a photo online of him having a meal with Kharkamni and several other officials at a hotel in Mumbai.
Having the BCCI boss’s ear is no bad thing but Sangma’s deep political connections might trump that. And then there’s the High Court, which has yet to have its say on the matter. We wait expectantly…
(Photo: Meghalaya Cricket Association/Facebook)