A two-member representative team of the International Cricket Council (ICC) arrived in Nepal on Thursday as the controversy-hit Nepal T20 league continues to battle with payment issues and allegations of match fixing, spot fixing, and betting.

The team has immediately started talks with the stakeholders involved.

The team led by Andrew Ephgrave, a senior member of the ICC Integrity Unit, visited the Kirtipur-based TU cricket stadium on Thursday and observed the ongoing match and took stock of the situation.

Later in the day, the team held a meeting with the Member Secretary of the National Sports Council Tanka Lal Ghising at his office in Tripureshwor.

The ICC team’s visit comes after Sachin Timalsena, the official commentator for Nepal T20 league, on Tuesday morning revealed through a Facebook post that he had quit commentary citing foul play and suspicious activities going on while working as a commentator and watching the games closely. The same day, former national cricket team captain Gyanendra Malla, who is also the captain of Kathmandu Knights, also revealed that one of his teammates was approached with a match-fixing plan.

Malla, in a press conference on Tuesday, revealed that a member of his team got a fixing proposal and they had reported it to the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) of the tournament.

Alongside suspicions of fixing, the league had also been beset in controversy due to the participating teams’ violation of payment agreement with their players. As per the contract, the players should have been given 40 percent of the contract amount before the tournament and the remaining 60 percent during the tournament. But only Pokhara Avengers and Lumbini All Stars have paid 50 percent of their payments among the six participating teams.

As per the regulations, all the players need to be paid by Seven3Sports via one-door system after franchises pay them the fees. But Seven3Sports managing director Jatin Ahluwalia has been out of contact with CAN officials or any of the Nepali stakeholders since Monday.

The Home Ministry on Tuesday had directed Nepal Police Headquarters to initiate a probe into the controversy surrounding the tournament following which the Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police has started an investigation into the matter.

The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority had also written to the National Sports Council, asking for clarification about the tournament being hosted without the council’s permission and payment issues of the foreign players who are participating in the tournament without a work permit.

According to Ghising, the team of ICC representatives and the council had a discussion about the ongoing T20 league.

“A team of CAN delegates had come to the Sports Council asking for work permits but the council did not go ahead with their request,” said Ghising. “We had asked CAN to submit documents seeking information regarding the issues of Public Procurement Act and foreign partners. They [CAN] ignored our requests. We have conveyed the same information to the ICC team. Nepali cricket should not be affected due to the negligence of one of the stakeholders.”

The National Sports Council has also formed a taskforce to investigate the controversy under board member Ekendra Kunwar.

Ghising said that the ICC team has also been informed about the first meeting of the taskforce that was held on Thursday.

Ghising further informed that during the meeting, he reminded the ICC representatives of the issue of the Nepali cricket having to suffer due to the financial suspension and ban on CAN in the past.