Hanuma Vihari has once again decided not to play for Andhra Pradesh and stated that he felt ‘humiliated’ by the behavior of the Andhra Cricket Association (ACA) during the 2023-24 Ranji Trophy.
He made this revelation when Andhra’s dream of reaching the Ranji Trophy semifinals for the first time shattered when they lost to Madhya Pradesh by four runs in Indore.
Vihari had scored 55 runs while chasing Andhra’s target of 170 runs, which was the top score in their second innings. He scored 522 runs in 13 innings, making it the second-highest score for Andhra after Ricky Bhui’s 902 runs.
On Instagram, Vihari alleged that he was forced to resign from captaincy after the first match of Andhra’s first round against Bengal in January. At that time, he had cited personal reasons for the decision, but on Saturday, he said the truth was that the association took ‘action’ against him due to political interference.
In his book, he wrote, ‘I was the captain in the first match against Bengal and during the match, I yelled at the 17th player, and he complained to his father (who is a politician).’ His father asked the association to take action against me in return. However, despite chasing Bengal’s target of 410 runs in the final last year, I was forced to resign from captaincy without any wrongdoing.
He said, ‘I never said anything personally to the player, but the association thought that this player is more important than the one who risked his body on the line last year and batted left-handed, led Andhra to the knockout stage five times in the last seven years, and played 16 Tests for them.’
ACA later issued a statement in response, stating that questions were being raised about Vihari’s captaincy tenure. According to the statement, ‘We have learned that Vihari used abusive language towards a special player during the Bengal Ranji match in front of everyone.’ The affected player has lodged an official complaint with ACA.
The association said that the decision to remove Vihari from the captaincy was taken by the selection committee chairman because Vihari’s availability for the entire season is being affected due to the possibility of him being in the Indian team.
Vihari said that he felt ‘humiliated and embarrassed’ after this incident but continued to play under Bhui’s captaincy, helping Andhra secure the second position in Group B with three wins in seven matches.
He said, ‘I felt embarrassed, but I continued to play in this season because I love the game and respect my team.’ He said, ‘The sad thing is that the association thinks that whatever the player says must be heard, and the players are there because of them.’ I felt humiliated and embarrassed, but I haven’t expressed it until today.’
Coincidentally, Vihari ended his season against Madhya Pradesh, where he was given a release to join the team and was tipped to lead before the current season. Vihari was in talks with Madhya Pradesh’s coach Chandrakant Pandit and the state association, where he hoped to strengthen the batting lineup with strong players like Rajat Patidar, Venkatesh Iyer, and Shubham Sharma.
However, this deal fell through at the last minute, causing no side to specify. ESPNcricinfo has learned that he was allowed by ACA to stay before the Duleep Trophy, where he led the South Zone to victory.
After starting his career with Hyderabad, Vihari moved to Andhra in 2015-16. He returned to Hyderabad before the 2021-22 season. Vihari has not been part of India’s Test team since July 2022 when he played his last Test in England, almost two and a half years after his most famous performance for India in Sydney.
Vihari has scored 839 runs in his Test career of 16 matches with an average of 33.56, including a century against the West Indies.
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