Boost For Cricket As Sports Complexes And Stadiums Allowed To Open In Lockdown 4.0

Published - 17 May 2020, 11:10 PM | Updated - 23 Aug 2024, 12:28 AM

India (Credits: Twitter)

Sports fans in the country have finally received some much-needed positive news. Every sporting event in the country has come to a standstill due to the coronavirus outbreak. As far as cricket is concerned, there has been no international cricket since March.

India have not played since the completion of the New Zealand tour in the first week of March. On the other hand, the Australia-New Zealand ODI on March 13 was the last international game before every cricket event was called off. Well, the signs are looking promising now.

The government of India has given some relaxations to the sports fraternity in the latest guidelines of the nation-wide lockdown. In the new set of guidelines released by the Ministry of Home Affairs, that come into affect from 18 May, sports complexes and stadia have been permitted to open. However, spectators will not be allowed.

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While it is highly unlikely that any event will take place any time soon, the latest relaxations will likely allow India’s sportspersons to return to training, if only for individual sports. The Indian cricketers will be desperate to resume their training as soon as possible.

IPL 2020 — If not for the pandemic, the IPL would have been going on in India right now(Credits: Twitter)

The cricketers might not start full fledged training soon but the opening of the stadia will allow them to at least resume their physical training. Earlier this week, Germany’s Bundesliga became the first major sporting event to resume. With seveal precautions at place, the teams played against each other behind closed doors.

Other countries in in Europe are also gearing up to resume their football leagues. It would now be interesting to see BCCI’s next step for the IPL. IPL 2020 was scheduled to start on March 29 before the board suspended it indefinitely in the light of the pandemic. Reports suggest that the tournament could be held in the second half of the year.