COVID-19 outbreak has affected largely on the world where not only the lives of people but the sports industry have affected a lot. While the current series between India and South Africa and Australia and New Zealand have been cancelled, the much-anticipated cash-rich league – Indian Premier League has been pushed back by the BCCI.
Amidst the dangerous coronavirus, the Indian Premier League will begin from April 15. However, there is no surety about this league played its normal schedule yet. But a curtailed league can be one of the options discussed at Saturday’s meeting between BCCI and the eight IPL franchise owners whereas Kings XI Punjab‘s co-owner Ness Wadia said that he is not sure about when the T20 event will commence.
“We cannot and no one, you know, is in a position today to say when it’s going to start. We will review the situation after two to three weeks. And hopefully by then the cases will reduce,” Ness Wadia said to the reporters after IPL owners’ meeting with BCCI president Sourav Ganguly and secretary Jay Shah.
Wadia made it clear that health and safety measures are most important at this time. In India, the death count is two and more than 80 positive COVID-19 cases have been reported so far, which witnessed the empty stadiums and also stop the fans out of sporting events to avoid large gatherings which is one of the causes of spreading coronavirus.
“The second option right now is that teams could be divided into two groups of four and then top four go into the play-offs. The third option is increase of double headers (played on weekdays),” a source shared.
Alongside these, there are a couple of other options too which included playing all matches in a couple of centres with restricted movements of players, support staff and television crew as well. Even playing behind closed doors is another option where all the 60 games can be played in a shorter time frame which will make sure that the stakeholders do not face much loss.
Notably, The shifting of the tournament abroad was not a point discussed in the meeting. This virus has seen more than 5,000 deaths globally already. However, Ness Wadia shared that BCCI, IPL and (official broadcaster) Star (Sports) are clear that currently, no one is looking at a financial loss because as of now human beings come first and finance will come later. He also hoped that the situation will be better soon.
He again added that further decision will be taken when there is clarity on that matter which can be in two-three weeks. Even there is a restriction on foreign players as well. On the other hand, Delhi Capitals owner Parth Jindal said that another meeting will take place later to discuss the next step. In fact, this year more double-headers can be seen or not will be decided later as well.
