LUCKNOW, May 30 -- Confusion looms over the commencement of the fourth edition of the UPT20 League, a prestigious cricket event of the Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association, as the state government has asked them to clear pending dues of over Rs 4 crores for ground booking before conducting a fresh edition of the event, scheduled to start on August 14 at the Green Park Stadium in Kanpur. Though the state government has agreed to charge Rs 2.5 lakh per match this season as per the new provisions after an intervention by higher authorities and a series of meetings with the UPCA, dues of Rs 4.16 crore from the first edition of the event are still to be paid. On behalf of the Uttar Pradesh Sports Directorate, which leased out the Green Park Stadium to the UPCA under a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at an annual rent of Rs 1.25 crore, Kanpur's regional sports office already issued a letter to the UPCA, requesting the deposit of the remaining Rs 4,15,62,500 crore. In total, a bill of Rs 10.35 crore was levied on the UPCA for the first edition of the UPT20 League in 2023, and thereafter the UPCA shifted the venue of the next two editions to Lucknow's Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium. This time, the association chose to shift back to Kanpur after a fresh agreement with the state government. Following a meeting with state officials before the India-Bangladesh Test in Kanpur in October 2024, the UPCA cleared a payment of Rs 1 crore and hoped that revising the ground booking fee per match would resolve the issue. "The new agreement of Rs 2.5 lakh per match starts with the conduct of the new season, but the UPCA will have to clear the old dues of over Rs 4 crore," said a senior official of the sports directorate on condition of anonymity on Friday. "So far, there are no orders from the top to forgo that money," he added. However, UPCA sources say that they were hoping for relief in the ground booking fee. "When we paid Rs 1 crore last year after we were allowed a 50 percent discount on the ground booking, we thought that the same Rs 2.5 lakh per match would be levied even for the first edition, and it comes to around Rs 85 lakh for 34 matches. But we received the letter regarding the old balance of over Rs 4 crore only a day after we announced the commencement of the event in Kanpur this month," said a UPCA official. "We already made it clear to the state government that the UPT20 League is an event to spot talent and give state cricketers an opportunity to showcase their talent," he said. "There is no commercial or profit-making aspect behind this, and the government should treat it accordingly and not like an IPL-type event. Now, this letter from the state government asking us to clear old dues has left us in a fix." However, UPCA secretary Prem Manohar Gupta said the cricketing body will soon take a call on this issue. "We are hoping to settle the issue soon," he said on Friday. "BCCI vice-president Rajiv Shukla will soon discuss this with state officials. If needed, we will approach CM Yogi Adityanath ji in this regard," said Gupta....