As the novel Coronavirus pandemic showed no symptoms of a slowdown, the nationwide lock down in India has been recently extended to 3rd May. While all sporting activities in the country have been cancelled and postponed during the lock down, this has raised some major questions regarding the 2020 Indian Premier League season, which was first postponed from 29th March to 15th April, and now faces further postponement. Additionally BCCI, the tournament’s organisers, have dismissed any further discussion on the recent proposal from Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) to host the tournament in their country.
While the number of positive cases in India has gone over 13,000 and 452 deaths, Sri Lanka has comparatively lower numbers, 238 cases and 7 deaths, and is expecting a quicker recovery from the virus crisis.
Amongst the uncertainty regarding IPL 2020, Shammi Silva, the president of SLC expressed the desire to host the 13th edition of blockbuster tournament in Sri Lanka.
“If they play it in Sri Lanka, it’s easy for Indian audiences to watch the games on TV. There’s precedent for this because they’ve played the IPL in South Africa before. We’re waiting for the Indian board to respond to our proposal,” Silva told Sri Lankan daily Lankadeepa.
However, BCCI is not evening any further discussion on the matter, as a senior board official stated, also dismissing on any official confirmation from SLC themselves.
“The BCCI will not be in a position to say anything when the world is closed. There is no proposal from SLC yet and obviously no discussion,” the official was quoted by PTI.
Previously, IPL was shifted to a foreign country in two instances, in both cases the reason was Lok Sabha elections. The first one was in 2009, when South Africa hosted the tournament, and again in 2014 when United Arab Emirates jointly hosted the tournaments.
Howevr, a former BCCI official have said that the situation might be different once the current chairman of ICC Shashank Manohar steps down in May, which may open up new options for a venue alongside Sri Lanka.
Although this time BCCI is eyeing a different slot for the tournament, preferably the September-October and October-November slots, which will also see the 2020 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup happening during that time.
However, sources have recently stated that if need be, IPl will be preferred over the T20 World Cup, and even Team India’s tour of Australia in December, if the situation arises.
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