A Brief History of The Bihar Cricket Association
BIHAR CRICKET ASSOCIATION was established in the year 1935 having its registered Head Office at Jamshedpur with Late Mr. A. M. Hayman as President, Mr. K. A. D. Naoroji and Professor Moin-ul-Haq as Vice-President, Mr. N. Quereshi as Secretary and Mr. Nagarwala as Honorary Treasurer.
In 1937 the Bihar Cricket Association (BCA) played its first Ranji Trophy match against the Cricket Association of Bengal and Assam at Calcutta and got a first-innings lead. A very creditable achievement indeed, though Bihar lost the match to a far better side. The First Ranji Trophy match was played in Bihar at the Keenan Stadium, Jamshedpur in 1939-40 against the Cricket Association of Bengal. Bihar had to wait till the 23rd of January 1948 to record its first victory when it beat Delhi and District Cricket Association at Keenan Stadium, Jamshedpur. Delhi and District Association had to score 32 runs with 8 wickets and one full day left a register a win. But the glorious uncertainties of cricket, 8 wickets tumbled for 17 runs in less than one hour! In 1959-60 Bihar defeated Bengal to become the East-Zone champion and entered into the semi-final of the Ranji Trophy against Mysore, Bihar had a good chance of winning the match if it had taken a lead in the first innings. The actual scores were Bihar 307 & 146 and Mysore 314.
Bihar Cricket Association organized National and International Cricket events at Patna. Teams of Zimbabwe and Kenya played in the world cup in 1996 at Moin-ul-Haq Stadium Patna. Teams of Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka also played in Hero Cup. The Women’s Cricket World Cup was also held at Patna under the supervision of BCA
After the bifurcation of the erstwhile State of Bihar in the year 2000 into the State of Jharkhand and the president State of Bihar, the original BCA having registered office at Jamshedpur also bifurcated into two Associations. The association in the president State of Bihar had the name Bihar Cricket Association whereas the Association in the State of Jharkhand had the name Cricket Association of Jharkhand (now Jharkhand State Cricket Association).
In the year 2001, the first election of BCA took place with Shri Lalu Prasad Yadav as President, Mr. L. P. Verma, Mr. Alok Raj, Mr. Ravi Shankar Prasad Singh, as Vice- President, Mr. Ajay Narayan Sharma as Secretary, Mr. Pravin Kumar as Treasurer.
BCA was granted associate membership by the BCCI on 27.9.2008 In the year 2010, the fresh election of BCA was announced but due to internal groupism no election was held and BCA was divided into two groups and resulting in the filing of a case before the Hon’ble High Court. The litigation reached upto Hon’ble Supreme Court. Hon’ble Supreme Court in SLP No. 35160 of 2013 vide order dated 11.08.2015 appointed Hon’ble Mr. Justice (Retd.) Dharmpal Sinha, as Observer to Bihar Cricket Association Election, accordingly Election was held and Mr. Abdul Bari Siddique as President, Mr. Ravi Shankar Prasad Singh as Secretary, Mr. Ram Kumar and five vice president were elected.
In the year 2010-2011, the ad-hoc committee of BCA sent its team to the under-19 age group, under-22 age group and under-16 age group tournaments sponsored by BCCI. Under-22 and under-16 teams were runners-up in their respective tournaments whereas the under-19 team was champion and therefore was allowed to participate in the ‘Plate Group Tournament’ sponsored by the BCCI at all Indian levels. The ad-hoc committee of BCA had also sent its women’s cricket team for the first time to participate in the senior women’s BCCI associate tournaments.
In the year 2016, BCA sent its team for under-19 and under-16 A & A tournaments sponsored by BCCI. Bihar teams were champions in both age groups.