LUCKNOW, Aug. 30 -- Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association's most lucrative project, the UPTwenty20 League, seems to have failed to protect the rights of local talents even after making tall promises for the betterment of the new generation of cricketers in all departments. For the third season in continuation, while the UPT20L has not been promoting cricketers from the neighbouring states, but it has allowed outsiders in teams as support staff and as well as in the technical aspects of the game, especially umpiring. Over a dozen cricketers, including former UP skipper Karan Sharma, hail from these neighbouring states, having domiciles of border districts like Noida and Ghaziabad, and have been part of Uttar Pradesh cricket for the last many years, whereas one former Himachal Pradesh bowler, Vikramjeet Singh Malik, too has been actively involved in UP cricket, and now in the UPT20 League after doing commentary for a TV channel last season. There is no doubt on the caliber of these officials, including former international umpire Anil Chaudhary, and his two associates and BCCI panel umpires Shamsuddin and Akshay Totre, but many believe that their involvement in the UPT20 League has denied local talent a chance to do the job in the state league. "Uttar Pradesh has no dearth of talent in any segment of the game, including umpiring and scoring as they have been doing matches in domestic matches quite efficiently, but when it comes to UPT20L, we feel deprived," said a qualified umpire on the BCCI panel. He also said that one of the main umpires among the three outsiders, besides standing as an umpire in a match, has also been doing commentary, and it's against the rules of the game. "I am surprised why the anti-corruption unit (ACU) people are not taking cognizance of how this person can be honest with his real duty while performing another one also?" he asked. Currently, there are 12 umpires, including three outsiders, six of the BCCI panel and three of UPCA panel who are involved in the ongoing third edition of the UPT20 League. Umpires belonging to Uttar Pradesh are: Tanmay Srivastav, Ashwani Mandani, Tahir Abbas, Ankit Tiwari, Anurag Singh Rathore, Rohit Yadav, Ravi Kaushik, Satish Pandey and Vijay Sharma, whereas two match referees from Uttar Pradesh are: Parvinder Singh, Rohit Prakash, while Shakti Singh comes from Himachal Pradesh. "We don't need anyone from outside as this league is to promote local talent in all departments. We all know who is the man behind the intrusion of cricketers from other states into Uttar Pradesh at the cost of our home grown cricketers," said a senior functionary of the UPCA on condition of anonymity on Friday. "We didn't have even a single technical official from outside the state, especially umpires, in the first edition of the event at Kanpur in 2023 where all eight umpires were from the state, and the event was a big success, but all of a sudden from the second edition and now, there is involvement of outsiders in umpiring too," he said, adding, "We haven't seen any involvement of any outsiders in other states league like Delhi, Karnataka and Kerala etc., this month. If they can rely on their own, why can't UPCA?" Another member of the UPCA blamed the top officials of having "extraordinary' faith in events people, who are manipulating things on their own. "It's a cricket event of Uttar Pradesh and not a bollywood show where you can bring outsiders to add glamour to it. We aren't here to promote films etc, but cricket only," he further said. "Many of our cricketers and officials get to go up in their fields like cricketers go to IPL and get selected for state teams and the officials like umpires graduate to the board trophy matches so we should take it seriously," he said. He also said that the UPCA lacks "knowledgeable hands" of cricket as people running the show don't have any idea how to tackle things as a few of them were the employees of ticketing and catering organisations. However, UPCA secretary, Arvind Srivastava, said that he finds nothing wrong in involving umpires from outside in the UPT20 League as it will help the local talent learn from them, but promised that he will raise this issue of outsiders with the people concerned. "I feel that it's good to have top technical experts of the game for the better education of the local technical experts. I think it's a league's governing council call, but still I will discuss this issue with the authorities concerned," he said. UPT20 League's chairman and former DG of Uttar Pradesh Police, DS Chauhan was not available for comment on the issue....