Kerala Strikers' Team Members Forced to Deplane for Alleged Misbehaviour with Airline Crew

The 30-member Kerala Strikers team, taking part in the Celebrity Cricket League (CCL 4), was forced to deplane at the Kochi airport on Friday, due to alleged misbehaviour with the airline crew.

Kerala Strikers is one of the four CCL teams playing the semi finals match to be held on 22 February in Hyderabad. The team members had boarded the Hyderabad-bound Indigo Airlines flight 6E-314, which was scheduled to depart at 1 p.m. on Friday.

However, the pilot had to abandon the take off after an air hostess complained that some members of the Kerala Strikers team has misbehaved in the flight. A spokesperson for the airlines said that the team members laughed and clapped as the air hostess was giving out safety instructions which caused disruption to other passengers in the flight, reported The Hindu.

In the wake of the incident, the 30-member team including film and TV actors was asked to disembark from the plane along with their baggage. The flight later took off at 2.33 p.m. and landed in Hyderabad at 3.44 p.m.

Kerala Strikers team manager Edavela Babu had denied the alleged misbehaviour of the team members. "The airline is our travel partner and we have been taking their flights throughout the series. On all these flights, we cheered for the captain and flight crew before the plane took off. That's all that happened this time too," the daily quoted Babu. 

The team has filed a complaint with the Nedumbassery police, stating that they have done nothing wrong and they were wrongly offloaded from the flight. Later in the day, the team members took separate flights to Hyderabad as they will be playing a match today (Saturday).

The Kerala Strikers team, which has performed well in the ongoing CCL 4, will be facing Bhojopuri Dabanggs in the first semi final match to be held in Hyderabad. The team will be hoping to win the match and enter the finals to be played on 23 February.