Saqib Bashir
Srinagar, Feb. 17: Cricket is the most popular sport across India and is played in almost every corner of the world. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is the governing body of Indian cricket.
Like other states of India, UT Jammu and Kashmir is also on the frontline in cricket, and with so much cricketing skill, the Jammu and Kashmir cricketers have been making their presence felt at the local and domestic level as well. Over the past few years, cricketers from J&K have been making advances on larger platforms, particularly since the emergence of the Indian Premier League (IPL).
However, in Kashmir, cricket has taken on a new meaning; it has evolved into a form of gambling in which many wealthy valley residents invest to make huge profits in the name of cricket.
“We couldn’t afford a tournament fee for most of the district-level tournaments because the entry fee was over ten thousand,” said Jvaid Majeed, a local cricketer from Boniyar Baramulla.
He also said that cricket is now becoming both gambling and business for many organizers, who are organising tournaments at the district and tehsil levels in different corners of the valley.
“My aim is to play for India as Virat Kholi is my role model, but it looks different for players for me as we even can’t participate in district-level tournaments due to the high fee,” Owais Majeed, a local cricketer, said while speaking with the said correspondent.
“Cricket is my passion. I wake up at 7:30 in the morning and go for regular practise in the nets every day, but hundreds of players like me cannot show their talent as they remain on the back line when they are not even able to participate in local and domestic leagues,” he added.
“The local cricket has almost vanished away as the teams with rich sponsors and owners are able to participate in tournaments, while the local cricketers do not get the chance to show their talent in these tournaments,” Suhail Ashraf said.
Thousands of cricket tournaments are organised every year in Kashmir; no corner of the valley lags behind when it comes to organising cricket tournaments. People of all age groups participate in these events with huge enthusiasm, but in the last two years, cricket in the Valley has lost its meaning. It is now becoming a very simple way for some people to earn big bucks. Now people from different sectors of society are making this beautiful game into a form of gambling.
Businessmen, landlords, wholesalers, etc. now own a team in the name of their brand and hire players from all districts of the valley and pay them to play for their teams in local tournaments, which have high fees and huge winning amounts. Players hired leave no stone unturned in order to win those tournaments because, at the end of the day, they also get a share of the winning amount. Fights, controversies, etc. are now very regularly seen on the field; players now fight with the match officials if any decision goes against them, and what makes it worse is that the teams with these hired big players then leave the field as they don’t want to lose because the winning amount is worth lakhs at the end of the tournament.
Every year, Kashmir experiences a three-month winter season, but that hasn’t stopped organisers and owners from making a fortune off of cricket. Now people from Kashmir are organising leagues outside of J&K in states like Delhi and Punjab, where the weather remains warm while it’s cold in Kashmir. The leagues are titled things like “Mini IPL of J&K,” “Kashmir Premier League,” etc. On one hand, the organisers and owners claim that they are organising these tournaments for the betterment of cricket in Kashmir and acting as promoters of the game in the valley, but on the other, these leagues have a huge fee structure, which makes it impossible for a local player to take part in them. As team owners, they only take players who are well-known in Kashmiri cricket, leaving hundreds of thousands of young and talented players who cannot afford to play elsewhere.
Impact on local cricket: The cash-rich leagues have almost finished the local cricket in the valley. There used to be a time when young and inspiring cricketers of the valley used to take part in local tournaments and compete with players of higher age. Tournaments used to have very low fees, and a young player or a student used to be able to afford the little amount to play cricket, but now it has become almost impossible for a young player to even take part in a local tournament. Organizers now organise tournaments with a huge fee structure, and owners only hire players with big names in valley cricket.
We hardly see these players on higher levels only because they are just busy making huge money and getting praised on social media. While Kashmir is the most active part of the UT in cricketing activities, it’s players from Jammu who are making it big on the higher levels like the Indian Premier League. There are only a few players from Kashmir who are making it big on the state level by taking part in tournaments like the Ranji Trophy, etc., but the irony is that people hardly know and praise these players because they don’t play local mat cricket and are not made stars by self-created Facebook pages.
