Cricketer misses on sports quota in engineering admission

CHENNAI: Confusion created by the absorption of women’s cricket bodies into the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) fold may have resulted in a student being denied engineering admission under the sports quota.

M.S. Shailaja, who has represented the State and the South Zone in different cricket tournaments, applied under the sports quota this year. According to the rules for sports marks, she was eligible to consider the best performance each academic year between 2006 and 2009.

According to the rules, she received 50 marks for being in the runner-up team in August 2006 and 20 marks for participating in a tournament representing the State in 2007-2008. She had also participated in a 2006 tournament held by the Uttar Pradesh Women’s Cricket Association.

For the marks of that tournament to be counted, she had to obtain a “Form II” — a requirement in the admissions process for national-level tournaments conducted by State associations.

M. Sundar, Ms. Shailaja’s father, says that he realised this only when he received an official letter in the last week of June calling Ms. Shailaja for certificate-verification on July 2. (The requirement is printed in the official guidelines given by the university at the time of issuing application forms).

“I tried to get the form but I was told it would be a problem because the Tamil Nadu Women’s Cricket Association (TNWCA) did not exist,” he says. In 2006, BCCI took over the control of women’s cricket and the Women’s Cricket Association of India (WCAI) and different State Women’s Cricket Associations became unofficial bodies with women’s wings in the State Cricket Associations replacing them.

Sundari Shankaran, convenor, Tamil Nadu Cricket Association — Women’s Wing, who was honorary secretary of the TNWCA in 2006, tried to help him with the problems but says she could not get everything together on time.

“I called up the then WCAI president and tried to see if something could be done but I needed a few days’ time,” she says. On July 2, before she could get the necessary form, the university officials, following the stipulated rules, awarded Ms. Shailaja only 70 marks at the verification.

When the final rank list for sports quota was released early on Sunday, Ms. Shailaja’s name was not on the list. “I would have been ranked 42 or 43 in the MBC category if I had received those 75 marks,” Ms. Shailaja says, pointing to the rank list.

A total of 75 students in the MBC category were called for counselling with the last student in the list scoring 100 marks.

On being informed about this issue, V. Rhymend Uthariaraj, secretary, Tamil Nadu Engineering Admissions 2009, said that the university had followed the rules stipulated by the government-appointed sports committee.

Publication: The Hindu - Chennai; Date: July 6, 2009