CHENNAI : There are U-turns. And there ARE U-turns. On Monday, Aditya Verma, secretary of the Cricket Association of Bihar, made the latter into an art form. Verma, who strangely began the press conference by asking the media to remain silent for 15 seconds to pay respects to actor Sridevi, began by saying he had absolutely no problems with N Srinivasan, the former chief of BCCI.
A Google search contradicted Verma’s missive. Search for ‘Aditya Verma N Srinivasan’ and the first few pages throws up interesting headlines. “Aditya Verma, the man who took on N Srinivasan,” one said. “N Srinivasan’s last hurdle — Aditya Verma and his powerful friends,” read another. “Aditya Verma writes to Arun Jaitley, says don’t entertain N Srinivasan,” a third one pointed out. A quick history lesson: Verma was the man responsible for the Supreme Court bringing the Lodha recommendations into law.
Verma, who was in the city ‘because he has never addressed journalists in this city before’, spoke about his deep regret about how matters related to the BCCI have seemingly stalled before the Supreme Court. While he expressed anguish about the state of affairs of the game in Bihar — he hoped the State would get back to playing Ranji Trophy in 2018 -19 after the Supreme Court directed the BCCI to allow them to enter national competitions in a ruling on January 4, 2018 — he levelled serious allegations against both Amitabh Chaudhary, joint acting secretary of the BCCI and Shashank Manohar, former BCCI chief. He accused the former of ‘hijacking the BCCI’ and the latter of providing support to the former.
But most of Verma’s address revolved around him wanting to clear the air with respect to Srinivasan. It was reported that Verma’s main mission behind the trip to Chennai was to seek an audience with Srinivasan in the hope of forming an unlikely alliance. That meeting did not take place. “I did not meet him (I have not even contacted him) because I don’t have his number. (The thing is) I don’t want to become a villain in the eyes of N Srinivasan. I want to explain (to media) that my fight was not against any individual. I am just fighting for the revival of cricket in Bihar. (As far as Srinivasan is concerned) it was bad luck that he was president when the scam happened. “I respect him (Srinivasan) and will respect him till the last breath of my life.”
How times change.