Private coaches offer ‘packages’ for cricketers from other states to become ‘locals’ in Puducherry– opening the door to local association teams and BCCI riches.
Indian cricket’s global rise rests on a hard, almost unforgiving ecosystem. A vast, hungry talent pool, relentless competition at every rung, the muscle of the IPL, and coaches who push players through an exacting, often brutal, screening process. The system’s strength lies in the belief of fairness — that skill, sweat and selection together create a level playing field.
In Puducherry, that field has been turned upside down.
Addresses are manufactured, eligibility certificates sold for a fee, and a one-man proprietorship has morphed into a full-blown parallel selection system that operates right under the nose of the Cricket Association of Pondicherry (CAP) and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) whose job is it to monitor it, an investigation by The Indian Express has found.
Over the past three months, The Indian Express reviewed over 2,000 registration forms of players in the Union Territory, spoke to over a dozen former and current players and officials, tracked down several listed addresses of residences and institutions on the ground.
It revealed a well-oiled pipeline operated mainly by coaches at private academies who offer backdated admissions in educational institutions and dodgy Aadhaar addresses, or even job records, to help cricketers from other states meet the BCCI’s mandatory one-year residency requirement and become “local” cricketers — all for “packages” upto Rs 1.2 lakh or more. And a fast-track route to CAP teams across age-groups.
Consider this illustrative example: 17 “local” cricketers from eight states, who are part of various CAP squads, share one Aadhaar address at Mothilal Nagar in Moolakulam. The homeowner said she had leased out a portion of the house to four cricketers a “few years ago” who were evicted “within months” for non-payment of dues.
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Why is Puducherry an emerging market, so to speak? The stakes are high.
A Ranji Trophy cap unlocks a world of opportunities through visibility, match fees and sports quota jobs. Even a junior player can earn up to Rs 11.2 lakh a season in match fees alone if he plays in all the seven league stage matches. Besides, good performances in the T20 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and the 50-over Vijay Hazare Trophy boosts chances of a lucrative slot in the IPL.
The CAP was set up by P Damodaren, the owner of wires and cables company Siechem Technologies Ltd, who himself faces allegations of conflict of interest and impropriety (read Part II of the Express Investigation).
It’s also a voting member of the BCCI, which prides itself on being a global success story as the richest and most influential cricket body, and owner of IPL, which is among the Top 10 sports leagues in the world. And yet, thriving in its shadow are these “rigged” systems, as former Puducherry fast bowler Santhamoorthy described it.
Investigating official records, The Indian Express found:
* Over the past four years, only five Puducherry-born players have taken the field in the 29 Ranji matches played by the team. In the opening U19 game of the Vinoo Mankad Trophy this season, nine of the 11 players were recruits from other states labelled as “locals”.
* Last season, there were not more than four Puducherry-born players in any game of the 15-member senior men’s squads. The rest were players from other states who were armed with all the documents required to be labelled as “local” — each senior team can officially accommodate only three “outstation” players.
* In the 2025-26 Ranji Trophy, no local player featured in any of Puducherry’s five matches in the first half of the season.
* Five local cricketers were banned by the CAP for protesting the unfettered inclusion of outstation cricketers in the T20 Pondicherry Premier League (PPL) 2025 season.
* In 2019, the BCCI banned six players from Puducherry for listing a fictitious “Senthil Institute” in their registration records.
“Cricketers from North Indian states come, pay and play the next day itself without having to physically fulfill the key one-year residency requirement,” Santhamoorthy said.
In 2019, Santhamoorthy set a first-class world record by becoming the oldest bowler ever to take a five-wicket haul on debut and later became the oldest pacer to bag five wickets in a T20 game (against Mumbai) at the age of 41 years and 129 days.
According to Santhamoorthy, a key role in the parallel system is played by coaches of private academies. “I know a coach who brings in players from across the country to the academy where he coaches. Those who can afford to pay simply arrive at the ground and strike a deal,” he said.
These claims are denied by S Venkatraman, an influential figure in local cricketing circles. His CV speaks for itself: CAP joint-secretary (2019-22); PPL franchise coach; South Zone’s Duleep Trophy 2025-26 assistant coach; CAP U19 men’s coach. His younger brother Karthikeyan became the CAP secretary in September 2025.
“We are only following the procedures under the BCCI in terms of eligibility. How is the state association responsible for cross-verifying Government-issued documents like Aadhaar and PAN submitted by a player? We forward all the documents to the BCCI for cross-verification,” he said.
Venkatraman also runs Jagath Academy, a private cricket coaching centre that has faced allegations by former players for fast-tracking players from other states to CAP squads. Denying the allegation, Venkatraman said, “Pondicherry is an education-based city. Quality inventory among locals is low, so we pick players who perform well, irrespective of background.”
According to Senthil Kumaran, founder of the Bharathidasan Pondicherry Cricketers’ Forum, “The one-year eligibility criteria is the primary source of all problems in Pondicherry cricket, and I have raised it several times in emails to the BCCI.” The forum was formed by former local players to “bring an official channel to raise complaints against the CAP to the BCCI”.
Kumaran urged the BCCI to adopt a structure similar to that of Vidarbha, the Ranji Trophy champions. Framing their own eligibility criteria in 2005, in addition to the BCCI norms, the Vidarbha Cricket Association mandated three years of educational or playing record with affiliated clubs as mandatory to be listed as local players.
How BCCI rules are subverted: A tale of 5 addresses
According to the BCCI, an outstation cricketer qualifies as a local with proof of a year’s employment in the region governed by the state association, or of an educational course from the previous calendar year leading up to a new season, along with residential evidence for at least one year.
The Indian Express investigated five residential addresses and three educational institutions that featured frequently in CAP’s player registration forms.
* Mothilal Nagar, Moolakulam: On paper, this two-storey house is the residence of 17 cricketers from eight states. Six of them are among Pondicherry’s 2025-26 senior team players; seven others appeared in the 2025 Pondicherry Premier League (PPL) in July; three played their last games for CAP in September 2024, and the other plays club cricket in England. According to records, the latest entrant is a U-23 player from Jagath Academy.
The homeowner said she had leased a portion of the residence to four cricketers “a few years ago”. “They were evicted for not paying rental dues, and we had to approach the CAP, which had brought them here. We are unaware of 11 players using our address,” said the owner.
* Tsunami Nagar, Narambai: This address in a tsunami rehabilitation colony features on the registration record of a 16-year-old Delhi player. Registering the address in 2023, the player turned up at Jagath Academy in 2024 before emerging as one of Puducherry’s highest run-scorers in the 2024-25 Vijay Merchant Trophy.
The homeowner’s son said the player never stayed at this residence. “On September 28, this boy came and requested a picture with me in front of the house. I was uncertain and asked why. But even before I got a proper response, they clicked a photo. He also asked me to say, if anyone came looking, that he had been staying here for a year,” the homeowner’s wife said.
