Cricket comes to the Kashmir valley

While India’s eyes were locked on the IPL in April, an experiment was beginning in Kashmir that hoped to use cricket as way of healing some of the state’s wounds as well as identifying its talent – the army announced the idea of the Kashmir Premier League (KPL). In the Indian Express, Bashaarat Masood says the valley has taken to the KPL in a big way, with more than 1,000 players from 193 teams playing in over 300 matches over the last two months.

In the past two summers, Qazi, like many other youth of Kashmir, was out on the streets of Shopian, hurling stones in protest against the alleged rape and murder of two women in the district. Today, though, he doesn’t hurl stones, only bats fabulously, taking his team to the final round of the Kashmir Premier League. This is the Valley’s first-ever T20 cricket tournament, modelled on the Indian Premier League (IPL), and organised by the Army and the state government. The team names have a flamboyance familiar to IPL fans: Shopian Super Kings, Budgam Badshahs, Srinagar Sherdils, Ganderbal Gladiators and Kupwara Knights, among others. The Army sponsors the teams, and provides them cricket kits, and even -refreshments.