No IPL matches at Dharamsala: HPCA

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, April 29

There will be no IPL match in Dharamsala. Just a day after the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA) announced that Kings XI Punjab franchise has made an official request to hold three matches at Dharamsala on May 7, 9 and 15, Sanjay Sharma, PRO of the association, said there would be no match at Dharamsala. He said that the Kings XI Punjab had decided against holding the IPL matches at Dharamsala. It has chosen Mohali over Dharamsala for its matches, he said.

The HPCA PRO blamed the state government for the development. He alleged that the HPCA had written a letter to the state government to provide security for the IPL matches proposed at Dharamsala. However, till date the state government had not responded to the request.

The Kings XI Punjab franchise managers had recently visited the Dharamsala stadium. They were apprised of the conditions prevailing here and ‘uncooperative attitude’ of the state government towards the HPCA, Sanjay Sharma alleged.

He said there were other issues such as charging for security and entertainment tax from the IPL franchise teams coming to play matches in the state. The state government had not clarified over these issues due to which Kings XI Punjab decided to play in Mohali in place of Dharamsala, Sanjay Sharma alleged.

Interestingly, Sanjay Sharma, in a press conference, held on April 27 had said that the matches would be played at Dharamsala only if the state government gave a written assurance regarding providing security for the matches.

The state government had made an announcement about 10 days ago that the matches would be held at Dharamsala and Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh would come for the May 7 match. The state government had maintained that the owner of the Kings XI Punjab and Bollywood actress Preity Zinta had rang up the Chief Minister and invited him for the May 7 match and the latter had accepted the invitation.

Though the government had made this announcement, the HPCA had been maintaining that they had been no official confirmation regarding the matches to be played here.

The sources here also said the decision of the Kings XI Punjab to directly contact the state government bypassing the HPCA could be one of the reasons that the matches have been shifted from Dharamsala.

The local Congress MLA and Minister for Urban Development Sudhir Sharma, a strong advocate for holding IPL matches at Dharamsala, said politics was behind the cancellation of matches.

It was the Kings XI Punjab that had approached the state government for holding the matches and the state government gave its approval for the matches. Earlier also, the state government had waived entertainment tax for IPL matches hosted here and a decision this time could have been taken.