How a star-studded Kashmir cricket league bombed as organisers fled
Al Jazeera
Billed as Kashmir’s biggest ever cricket show, the collapsed event has left a trail of questions, sense of betrayal.
Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir – Aasif Manzoor, a 32-year-old cricketer from Anantnag, a district in the south of Indian-administered Kashmir, was readying himself on Saturday morning to play a match in a star-studded tournament.
Retired global stars, local cricket icons and up-and-coming players were all part of the Indian Heaven Premier League (IHPL), which organisers had billed as a spectacle that they promised would grip the troubled region and draw large crowds.
Instead, Manzoor found himself huddled with his teammates in the corridors of the Radisson, a five-star hotel overlooking the Jhelum River in Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir’s biggest city, which was hosting the series.
Their hotel bookings had been arranged by the Yuva Society, a private group based in India’s northern state of Punjab, which had also organised the tournament. “The staff was refusing to let us check out,” Manzoor told Al Jazeera.
The reason? The organisers had vanished the night before, allegedly after running out of money midway through the tournament.
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