IPL 2018: Captains not to attend opening ceremony due to logistics issue

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has decided that the six captains of IPL franchises barring Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings, won’t need to attend the opening ceremony scheduled on April 7.

However, all the eight captains will do a video on April 6 and leave that very evening itself. Meanwhile, till last year the convention was to have an opening ceremony a day before the first match. The captains attended the program and signed the Spirit of Cricket’ pledge.

However, this IPL Governing Council decided that the opening ceremony will take place before the first match. This edition will start from April 7 with Chennai and Mumbai facing each other in the opener.

However, the goof-up happened because senior IPL officials didn’t do their homework on the logistical aspect of four other franchises who have matches next day.

On April 8, there is a doubleheader with Delhi taking on Punjab at Mohali and KKR facing RCB in Kolkata.

“IPL team should have done their homework. They are calling Gautam Gambhir and Ravichandran Ashwin a day before an afternoon match. That’s absolute lack of homework,” a senior BCCI official told PTI.

“Sample this. If Ashwin and Gambhir would have attended the opening ceremony, they could only board a 9 pm flight from Mumbai to Delhi as there are no late evening flights from Mumbai to Chandigarh. Now from Delhi, they can’t take a flight to Chandigarh on Sunday morning because the airport would remain closed. So either they travel by car during the night, which is a dangerous proposition or in the morning of the match to play at 4 pm. The less said, the better it is,” he fumed.

Even Virat Kohli and Dinesh Karthik would have had to travel, although they have an evening game.