On December 5, 2000, the Indian cricket authorities banned Mohammad Azharuddin, the former captain of the national team, from cricket for life. The ban was based on a report by the Central Bureau of Investigation.
In 2012 the Andhra Pradesh High Court set the ban aside, on procedural grounds and without clearing him of wrongdoing, as Siasat reported. By then he had already been elected to the Lok Sabha from Moradabad in 2009. In 2019 he became president of the Hyderabad Cricket Association. On October 31, 2025, he was sworn in as a minister in the Telangana government.