Hotel management told to keep players, staff
Excelsior Sports Correspondent
Srinagar, Nov 2: The much-hyped Indian Heaven Premier League (IHPL) has come to an abrupt halt as the management of the League fled Kashmir at the dead of night leaving players and the staff stranded at the hotel due to non-payment of bills.
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Mel Juniper, a coach with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and an umpire in the IHPL, told reporters here that the hotel management locked all the doors in the morning under the instructions of the organizers of the league.
“The hotel was instructed this morning to lock all doors and leave all players and all staff within the building on the instruction from the league,” she added. “This has now been changed to the fact that it’s just a selected couple of us who will be staying,” she said.
She said that they reached out a deal with the hotel management to send players and other staff home and she along with a couple are in the hotel until the organizers reach any deal with the hotel regarding the payment.
“We have come to an agreement with the owners at this moment in time to allow the players home to their families as obviously they’re not getting any money whilst they’re here. They haven’t been paid themselves and it’s not fair on the players being away from their homes and their families for this long,” she said.
After the agreement, she said the players and the staff were allowed to leave the hotel. “There are over 40 players, local players and overseas players. So at this moment in time we’ve let them all go and we’ve got a couple of us who are staying until the payment is made. They are allowed to go home to their families. The people who are staying are myself.”
Juniper said the league had to finish as the organizers have run away without paying players, hotel and other staff.
“We were not know anything until this morning. They managed to leave late last night. We can’t play any more cricket without any bills being paid or anyone else being paid. So, until any money is being paid there will be no more cricket,” she added.
“We can’t play any more cricket without any bills being paid. Okay so obviously the league has had to finish early. This has been down to no fault of the players or the hotel management or any of the staff,” she said.
“It’s all been down to the league. Unfortunately, bills haven’t been paid, staff haven’t been paid, hotels haven’t been paid,” she said.
A government official said that no matches were played since yesterday at Bakhshi Stadium and the management of the IHPL didn’t respond to their calls. “We were in touch with Ashu Dani, IHPL President. We called him yesterday but he didn’t respond. Later, he switched off his cell phone,” he said.
The official said that the tournament, organised by Yuva Society with Parminder Singh its Chairman, started on Oct 25 and 12 matches were played till Friday. Twenty-seven matches were to be played and the final was slated to be on 8th November.
There were eight teams participating in the league. They included Gulmarg Royal, Ladakh Heros, The Pulwama Titans, Srinagar Sultans, Kishtwar Giants, Jammu Lions, Patnipot Warriors and Uri Panthers.
To increase the league’s popularity, some big international players including Chris Gayle, Imran Tahir, Martin Guptill, Shaun Marsh, and Devon Smith, as well as Indian players like Parvez Rasool and Saurabh Tiwary were part of the league.
The official said that the response to the league was very poor and only 5000 people watched the first match and during the rest of the matches number of spectators were around 1000- 2000.
A group of youth who were hired as bouncers said that they were not paid by the organisers. “We are around 80 people and were hired for the tournament but not a single penny was paid to us,” a bouncer said.
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