BCCI's ACU unit blocks an unauthorised cricket league featuring Virat Kohli's picture for promotion

As the game of cricket cricket hasn’t been played for quite a few months now, the fans are eagerly waiting for some action to happen. The BCCI is working towards it by organizing the Indian Premier League (IPL) from September 19th. However, some people with the intention of converting it into a business idea are working upon starting a league as organizers.

They are planning to start such leagues without any official license. One of such unauthorized leagues, named ‘NCR Cricket League’ was going to happen from 11 August but the Anti Corruption Unit of BCCI blocked the league. The organizers were selecting players when the action was taken. The organizers were trying to add players which are registered with the world’s richest cricket board and that is the reason why BCCI intervened.

An official from BCCI shared the details upon the same recently. “We intercepted them at the stage of team selections. We sent out an advisory to all our registered players not to participate,” BCCI ACU head Ajit Singh was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times (HT).

The tournament was supposed to be telecasted live on Youtube

The league was to be organised in Uttar Pradesh. The organizers approached cricketers including the Ranji players as well. The poster also had a picture of Virat Kohli on it, that too unauthorised for promoting the event. Moreover, the poster had a logo of MPL as the league of invited fans to participate by building their fantasy teams on MPL, a famous fantasy cricket platform promoted by the Indian captain himself.

As reported by HT, the league was organized by a man based in New Delhi. Also, the tournament was supposed to be telecasted live on Youtube. BCCI does not intervene when ‘mohalla cricketers’ are involved but as the league invited India players, the apex body of the country had to block the league.

“If they get our registered players and they get exposed to corruption at an elementary stage, it is not good for their careers or the game,” says Singh. “But if someone stages cricket with mohalla (street) cricketers, we can’t do anything.”

Earlier this year, the same organizers were involved in another league. They were promoting a different league named ‘Hapur Premier League’ which also had a picture of Virat Kohli for its promotion. The tournament was promoted by saying it is the biggest league of Uttar Pradesh.