Meghalaya sacked their Ranji team overnight. The cricketers paid for the boardroom war

Most teams lose a Ranji Trophy match on the field. Meghalaya's squad lost theirs in a courtroom and a late-night phone call.

The side that played the first three rounds of the 2026-27 Plate League was removed on the eve of the round-four game against Nagaland in Shillong. A completely new set of players was put in their place. The original squad still came to the ground on match day. Match referee Arindam Sarkar told them to pack up and leave, because the BCCI had registered a different Meghalaya team.

No player selection was involved. The cause was a fight over who runs the Meghalaya Cricket Association (MCA).

Here is the short version. MCA secretary Rayonald Kharkamni was suspended after complaints that he had failed to act on sexual-harassment complaints from players in the state's Under-23 women's team. He challenged the suspension in court and lost.

The Meghalaya High Court sided with MCA president James Sangma against the association's Apex Council. It upheld Kharkamni's suspension and declared every resolution and team selection made by the Apex Council faction invalid. The squad that had played three rounds had been picked by the Apex Council, so it was suddenly "illegal".

The governance question underneath this, how the MCA handled complaints from its own women cricketers, is serious and deserves a proper answer. The players who were dropped had no part in it. They found out they were out of the team the night before a first-class match.

The timeline is the worst part. The player says the squad was given assurances at the pre-match meeting and practised up to match eve. Later that night, coach Nitesh Sharma was told the BCCI would register a new squad. Crictoday reports the new list was confirmed by around 11pm, and that the players said team management left after receiving threats.

On the first day there was a heavy police presence at the ground, including armed personnel. ESPNcricinfo understands this was in case the axed players protested. A Ranji Trophy Plate game in Shillong does not usually need armed police.

ESPNcricinfo says it asked the BCCI to confirm the sequence of events and had not had a reply. The dropped players say they have heard nothing either.

The result was predictable. A side that had not trained together, captained by a former Punjab opener who had never met most of his team, was bowled out for 144 in reply to 254. Meanwhile the players who had actually played the first three rounds watched from outside the ground.

It's easy to blame the new players, but they aren't the villains either. Jiwanjot, Sharath and Karnewar each last played first-class cricket last season, and they were flown into Shillong over the weekend. They were asked to play a four-day match with team-mates they had just met. Nobody involved in the dispute seems to have thought about what that would do to the cricket.

Meghalaya is not the first case this season. Before round one, Arunachal Pradesh had to forfeit a game, also against Nagaland, because two factions in their association were fighting in court. The BCCI then set up a three-member committee, chaired by Khairul Majumdar, to pick Arunachal's men's and women's teams for the rest of the season.

That is the obvious precedent. When a state association cannot agree on who picks the team, a neutral panel should pick it, before the night a match starts. The Arunachal fix worked because it came first. In Meghalaya it came the night before a match, and the squad was swapped overnight.

There is no clear next step for the original players. Some have been told they can attend trials before the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy later this month. The Apex Council is reported to be preparing a Supreme Court challenge. If that succeeds, it could undo the High Court ruling and the squad change, leaving the players unsure again.

The women's U-23 complaints at the heart of this needed accountability, and the court has spoken on that. But the players in the team should never have depended on which faction won the case. The BCCI already has a model for this from Arunachal. It needs to apply it to Meghalaya now, so the players are not left waiting on the Supreme Court as well.