Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) chief Sourav Ganguly has hinted that the remainder of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 will be played at some point of the ongoing year however, it won’t be held in India as the nation has witnessed a massive spike in Covid-10 cases recently.
Notably, the 14th season of the lucrative league was indefinitely on May 4 as multiple positive Covid-19 cases emerged in its secured bio-bubbles during the second-leg.
Before the league was suspended, only 29 matches were played.
Meanwhile, Ganguly has said it’s too early to discuss the details of finding another window for IPL 2021 but also said that it might become difficult to host the remainder of the tournament in India, which has been badly hit by a second wave of Covid-19 pandemic.
Also, several reports have recently said that the UK might be a possible venue or the BCCI might even take the IPL back to the UAE, which had hosted the 2020 season of the league.
When asked if the remainder of the IPL 2021 season could be held before or after the England series, Ganguly told Sportstar: “No. India is supposed to go to Sri Lanka for three ODIs and five T20Is. There are lots of organisational hazards like 14-day quarantine. It can’t happen in India. This quarantine is tough to handle. Too early to say how we can find a slot to complete the IPL.”
Meanwhile, the BCCI chief also said the Indian board would have carried on with IPL 2021 had positive Covid-19 cases not emerged from the bio-bubbles.
“You can say that now in hindsight that the IPL should have been called off earlier. Mumbai and Chennai (legs) did not have cases. Only when the IPL reached Delhi and Ahmedabad did the cases rise. People will say a lot of things in any case. The English Premier League had so many people affected. But they could reschedule the matches. But you can’t do that with IPL. You stop it for seven days and it is done. Players go back home and then the process of quarantine starts from scratch,” he opined.
“As I said, we would have continued if there were no cases. We would have completed the IPL. The players were in the bubble and there were no crowds at the venues. Players were not getting infected. Once the players got affected, we called it off. Look at leagues going around the world. They have had Covid cases, but they have continued,” Ganguky added.
On the other hand, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), which had also postponed the 2021 edition of Pakistan Super League (PSL), is reportedly trying to host the remainder of the tournament in the UAE.