Two Bihar teams turn up for Ranji Trophy match against Mumbai, police forced to intervene

What can be more bizarre than two squads turning up to represent one team? But that’s exactly what happened at the Moin-ul-Haq Stadium in Patna on Friday in India’s premier first-class cricket competition, the Ranji Trophy. As per a report in the Indian Express, two teams claiming to be the Ranji Trophy squad of Bihar turned up at the stadium for the match against Mumbai.

One of the squads was picked by Bihar Cricket Association president Rakesh Tiwary, while the other team was assembled by secretary Amit Kumar. Tiwary’s squad finally played the game after the intervention of the local police as the delayed matches started at 11 AM.

As per the report, not a single cricketer was named in the squads.

“We have picked the team on merit and that is the right team. You see the talent that is coming from Bihar. We have a cricketer (Sakib Hussain), who is picked in the IPL. We have a 12-year-old prodigy making his debut in the game. The other is being picked by the secretary who is suspended, so it can’t be the real team,” BCA president Tiwary told Indian Express.

Secretary Amit refuted Tiwary’s claims and added that it’s not the president’s job to select the team.

“First things first: I won the election, and I am an official secretary of the BCA. You can’t suspend a secretary. Secondly, how can a president select a team? Have you ever seen BCCI president Roger Binny announcing the squad? You will always see the signature of Secretary Jay Shah,” he told Indian Express.

A statement was later released by BCA which blamed suspended secretary Amit for all the confusion and held him responsible for an attack on a BCA member.

“There was a life-threatening attack on BCA’s OSD Manoj Kumar by those involved in the fake team. The miscreants have been identified and action will be taken against them,” the statement read.