{"id":187431,"date":"2025-11-07T09:38:38","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T04:38:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/?p=187431"},"modified":"2025-11-07T11:02:26","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T06:02:26","slug":"players-stranded-hotels-unpaid-how-a-kashmir-cricket-league-turned-into-a-fiasco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/2025\/11\/07\/players-stranded-hotels-unpaid-how-a-kashmir-cricket-league-turned-into-a-fiasco.html","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Players stranded, hotels unpaid &#8211; how a Kashmir cricket league turned into a fiasco&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-187432\" src=\"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/assests\/2025\/11\/5-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"418\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/assests\/2025\/11\/5-1.jpg 800w, https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/assests\/2025\/11\/5-1-390x204.jpg 390w, https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/assests\/2025\/11\/5-1-780x408.jpg 780w, https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/assests\/2025\/11\/5-1-768x401.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Srinagar: A controversy has erupted over a private cricket league in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir after its organisers left the tournament mid-way, without paying the players, support staff and hotel bills.<\/p>\n<p>According to Kashmir Media Service, the Indian Heaven Premier League (IHPL) &#8211; organised by the Yuva Society non-profit from neighbouring Punjab state &#8211; got off to a promising start, with international legends like Chris Gayle and Devon Smith participating in the opening matches, giving local players a rare opportunity to interact with global cricketing stars.<\/p>\n<p>But the tournament was halted after just a few matches, leaving hotel owners and players scrambling for their dues.<\/p>\n<p>The organisers left Kashmir in the middle of the night on November 1 after just 12 matches were played. The league, which began on 25 October, was scheduled to conclude on 8 November.<\/p>\n<p>It is unclear why they left, but according to local players the matches didn&#8217;t get a great response and drew crowds far smaller than the 25,000 to 30,000 spectators that were anticipated to turn up.<\/p>\n<p>Police say they&#8217;ve registered a case of cheating and breach of trust and launched an investigation into the incident.<\/p>\n<p>Local cricketers told the media that during the first match where Gayle was playing, there were just 400-500 people in the crowd, with spectators not turning up even after organisers slashed ticket prices by a third.<\/p>\n<p>The league had eight teams from the occupied Jammu and Kashmir and included a mix of local and international players.<\/p>\n<p>The incident has raised serious questions about how such an event was allowed to take place without proper oversight.<\/p>\n<p>An official from the Radisson Collection Hotel in Srinagar city where the organisers had stayed told the media on the condition of anonymity that he was &#8220;shocked&#8221; to see the CCTV footage which, he said, showed the organisers fleeing from the venue in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Srinagar: A controversy has erupted over a private cricket league in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir after its organisers left the tournament mid-way, without paying the players, support staff and hotel bills. According to Kashmir Media Service, the Indian Heaven Premier League (IHPL) &#8211; organised by the Yuva Society non-profit from neighbouring Punjab state &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":187432,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-indian-occupied-jammu-and-kashmir"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/assests\/2025\/11\/5-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187431"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":187433,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187431\/revisions\/187433"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}