Sourav Ganguly, the current president of Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) made his intentions clear on scheduling IPL 2020 this year when he wrote letters to all the member state associations. The copy of the letter in possession suggested that BCCI’s top brass is going to look out all options to organize IPL 2020.
Ganguly and his team have identified tentative dates for IPL 2020 which is from September 26th to November 8th.
As per the reports, BCCI consulted with all the franchises, media rights partner (Star India) and other stakeholders of the cash-rich league and has released the tentative dates i.e., September 26th November 8th for IPL 2020.
These tentative dates will come into existence subject to the postponement of the T20 World Cup in Australia.
However, the International Cricket Council (ICC) based on their recent meeting on 10th June has extended the date to 1st July to discuss the possible future of the T20 World Cup in Australia.
BCCI has also discussed with their broadcast partner on the window and post that tentative window for IPL 2020 has been zeroed from September 26th to November 8th.
As one of the BCCI members stated “We can’t keep our plans on hold. ICC has to decide on the T20 World Cup way forward and we have to decide on our plans. That is the reason tentative window has been zeroed down and we will start preparing as per this window for IPL”.
The question arises where IPL 2020 will be conducted will it be in India or outside? To which one of the officials said: “As of now we will still give preference to India provided the situation improves in our country in the next 30 days”.
However, IPL governing council chairman Brijesh Patel added that “the IPL 2020 can be hosted closed doors, can be limited to fewer venues, can be taken overseas, can be even played without international players”.
With all the conjecture that these dates related to IPL 2020 have built up that shows that BCCI is desperate to organize IPL this year and also for that they are ready to make compromises.
The possible roadblock at the moment will be T20 World Cup 2020 as IPL can only happen this year if BCCI gets that October window of the T20 World Cup in case the World Cup gets postponed this year.
