BCCI Gives IPL Franchise Five Dates To Start The Tournament
There is little denying the fact that there is absolutely no clarity over the future of this year’s Indian Premier League (IPL). The BCCI, on Friday, suspended the league till April 15 in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. There is no confirmation over whether the IPL would start soon after April 15.
The IPL governing council held a meeting with the eight franchises on Saturday (March 14) and reportedly came up with five dates on which the league can start. According to the New Indian Express, the five dates are April 15, April 21, April 25, May 1 and May 5.
The aforementioned dates are five dates on which the league could start. The report further claimed that the franchises are confident of hosting the tournament in full if it begins anywhere before April 25.
“In the past, when IPL was moved to South Africa in 2009, it was conducted over a span of 37 days. So if we begin by April 25 and run it till May-end, we can pull it off. But if it’s beyond that, it’s hard to plan how it will happen.
“One option is, avoiding the home-away concept and playing each other only once. Other is to have two groups. But the option of splitting it into two groups hasn’t found any takers as some marquee clashes will go missing from the calendar,” a franchise official told the news outlet.
However, BCCI president Sourav Ganguly, on Saturday said that the IPL would be curtailed whenever it starts.
“It will happen, because if it is April 15, then, in any case, 15 days are gone, it has to be truncated. How truncated, how many games, I can’t say at the moment,” Sourav Ganguly told reporters.
Going by the two comments, one can say that the two franchises are still not on the same page. Things will only clear up in the coming days. But for the time being, it is safe to say that everything depends on how the coronavirus outbreak unfolds in the coming days.
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