Tamil Nadu waits for a big clash between IAS and IPS officers at South Chennai cricket ground

1979 batch IAS Takru (File photo)

DELHI bureaucrats will feel jealous if they come to know that many of their colleagues in Tamil Nadu are practising regularly for a big cricket match ahead between IAS and IPS officers to be held at Guru Nanak college grounds at Velachery in South Chennai on January 25. Many top bureaucrats in Delhi have stopped playing golf as the new government at the Centre has raised the workload of the babus. (NB: very few senior bureaucrats in Delhi are cricket freaks). Even the inter-ministry music, dance and…
short play competition 2014-15 that was to take place between January 27 and 30, 2015 in Delhi has been postponed till February 17 for reasons not known to BoI.
Contrast this with the preparation for the mega IAS Vs. IPS cricket match in Tamil Nadu. The IPS officers are already upbeat that they have had a practice match with IRS officers. The IPS team comprises ADGP Ramesh Kudawla, inspectors general Sunil Kumar and Vinith Dev Wankhede and Superintendents of police TS Anbu and P Vijayakumar, according to a report published in the local edition of The Times of India.
The idea of having an IAS vs IPS match was mooted by 1989 batch IAS Md Nasimuddin. Originally hailing from Bihar, Nasimuddin was Tamil Nadu’s principal secretary in youth affairs and sports development department. He is the chairman and managing director of State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu Ltd (SIPCOT).
The IAS team is banking on the younger lot to win the match. For example, Ajay Yadav, a 2010 batch IAS and joint commissioner of commercial taxes, Coimbatore, is a fitness freak and is now net practicing for a big show. Yadav who originally hails from Uttar Pradesh is 31-year-old.
28 years old K Vijayakarthikeyan is another officer the IAS team is banking on. An MBBS-turned IAS, Vijayakarthikeyan is now Coimbatore corporation commissioner. Another player practising now is Tirupur’s sub-collector and 2012 batch IAS K Senthil Raj. He is yet another MBBS-turned doctor, hailing from Tamil Nadu itself.
In Delhi, Central Civil Services Cultural and Sports Board organises cricket coaching camps for the children of the Central government employees during the summer vacation. Those are organised at New Delhi’s Vinay Marg Sports complex usually in the month of May.
In Uttar Pradesh, the annual Neta-Babu cricket match gets a lot of attention. In February last year, the then UP chief secretary Jawed Usmani’s wife Farah was seen cheered her husband’s team. And chief minister’s wife Dimple Yadav reached the venue with her kids to cheer Akhilesh Yadav’s team. As BoI had reported then, IAS officers lost the match to the politicians by two runs in a cliff hanger. But many say, the state bureaucrats conceded the defeat in a “fixed match” so as to please their favourite Neta, chief minister Yadav.