IPL All-Star Game To Take Place After End Of IPL 2020

The much-anticipated IPL All-Star game will take place after the conclusion of the upcoming tournament. The thirteenth edition of the competition is set to kickstart on March 29 with defending champions Mumbai Indians locking horns with Chennai Super Kings in a blockbuster tournament-opener at the Wankhede Stadium.

The All-Star game was initially supposed to take place ahead of the IPL. Last month, BCCI president Sourav Ganguly had revealed the plan, stating that it would be charity game and would take place before the start of the main competition. However, the BCCI officials have now changed their mind and have instead decided to host the game after the end of the tournament.

The IPL will be played from March 29-May 24. The teams for the All-Star game would be decided by the performances players show throughout the IPL 2020 and the best players will make the final cut.

“It will be after the tournament. We will see the performance of the players and on that basis, the two teams will be selected,” ESPNCricinfo quoted IPL’s governing council chairman Brijesh Patel as saying.

According to the report, the All-star match was originally proposed by Patel and the BCCI decided to support him. The BCCI changed the plans after realising it did not have much time to get various things in place including the availability of players. Players from New Zealand, Australia and Australia will not be able to arrive in India before April and thus they would have missed the game too.

Moreover, the IPL will begin just ten days after the three-match ODI series between India and South Africa. Immediately after the ODIs against South Africa, five Indian players are set to travel to Bangladesh to participate in two T20Is between an Asian XI and a World XI, organised by the Bangladesh Cricket Board to commemorate the birth centenary of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s founding father.