Dear Ms Gayatri Reddy,

The start to this season has been very bad and quite obviously the fans are disappointed and some of us are very angry too. There was a post on Facebook suggesting that we should be true fans and support the team, come what may. My effort here is to make you understand why the anger is justified and why the anger in itself has nothing to do with the players.

Five years back, Deccan Chronicle won the bid for the team from Hyderabad. While every other franchise named the team after the city it was in, you chose to name it Deccan Chargers, for obvious reasons. Though hardly anyone refers to the place as Deccan anymore, we decided not to rage about it. The first season was very bad for us, winning just 2 games out of 14, but no one complained because there were a lot of close games and we know the team put their 100% in every game. More importantly we had a very good set of players who were bought – Sharma, Gilchrist, Afridi, Gibbs, Vaas, Symonds.

What happened in 2009 is history. We are very proud of that moment. In 2010, we reached the semi finals and that in itself was an achievement. Then started the downhill. You chose to retain only Daniel Christian and send everyone including a very promising  player like Rohit Sharma back into the auction. Every team has a strategy and you had yours. At the auction however, the strategy seemed slightly off mark. The team lacked balance, did not have enough good Indian players and unfortunately the international players bought, were out of form. Wonder why a Rohit was not retained.

2011 was a disaster. But I shall not blame the cricketers for that because quite evidently the team just did not have enough resources to win a game, even on paper. We won a few games in the end but that was too little, too late. What transpired after that has completely bamboozled me. Kevin Peiterson, Pragyan Ojha and even the likes of Harmeet Singh left the team on transfer. Not to forget T Suman who left for Mumbai Indians and Rahul Sharma who went to Pune Warriors. How could you lose so many players? What is the strategy behind this? Imagine, Mumbai Indians played three Hyderabad players against DC – Rayudu (earlier playing for Hyderabad Ranji), Ojha and Suman.

If you tell me that the transfers are not entirely in your hands and that if a player wants to go, you have no choice but to let him go, then you should realize that as a franchise it is your responsibility to make the players understand their roles, make them feel comfortable and make them think as one in realizing the team’s goals. You failed in doing that.

If the problem with Ojha was that he did not get to play enough games, he then chose a team that had India’s best spinner. Did he have a higher probability of playing more games for MI? In the 2012 auction, you went so madly after Ravindra Jadeja that it seemed money was not an issue but after you could not buy him, you just seem to shut shop and picked Parthiv Patel and Daniel Harris and went home. So after the loss of the previous year, you still did not realize what you were lacking in and what players you needed. How is a transfer for KP even justified if you could not get another quality player to fill his boots.

You should remember that this is Franchise Cricket. As much as we love the game and will watch and support the team from Hyderabad, to expect us to come to the ground for every game, build a fan base and buy merchandise, you should be accountable and show us that you are making an effort to make our team better.

I would much rather see some potential Hyderabad state players play and lose a game than see some cricketers (who do not even have an exceptional record) from areas that are as far as moon to us. (Read blog by T S Sudhir here) Play Akshath Reddy, Ibrahim Khaleel (did you watch him in ICL?), Alfred Absolem or any other people with similar record from Hyderabad. You neither seem to be able to buy players that are good enough nor do you seem to care for young cricketers from Hyderabad, yet you expect us to support the team. The 14 Deccan Chargers who go there and play a game will have our support every second and we are behind them and they know it too. The Question marks are more on the team owners.

Finally, how could you not buy a player who decided not to be an Icon player because you could have more money to buy others. V V S Laxman (read blog by coach John Manoj here) may not be the best T20 player around but if you are looking to increase your fan base, take him and make him an advisor and you will have more fans rooting for Hyderabad than you will by playing a game in Cuttack (Yes, I understand the “area” system but why is it that we are the only team that cares for the areas as I do not see MI or CSK play at other venues)

A Disappointed, yet spirited Deccan Chargers Fan

(Also read Tenali Rama’s report : Is Finolex `Rajinikanth buying DC?)