The Board of Control for Cricket in India will seek clearance in the next 14 days from the government to host the Indian Premier League in the UAE. The Indian board finally had a sigh of relief after the ICC decided to postpone the T20 World Cup 2020 to 2021. This has been open a window of September to November for the BCCI to host the lucrative league.
The BCCI president Sourav Ganguly had earlier stated that the first priority is to host the event in India as it would be expensive to stage the IPL overseas. However, as the number of coronavirus cases has increased significantly in the country, the hosting in India won’t be possible for the Indian board and furthermore they won’t get a green signal from the government.
However, UAE is expected to host the lucrative league and the BCCI is targeting the window from September 26 to November 8. In fact, UAE had also hosted the first leg of the glamorous league in 2014, when there were general elections in India. Thus, it would be an advantage to host the event there.
The IPL governing council chairman Brijesh Patel has confirmed that the Indian board will seek permission from the government to host the event in UAE. Emirates Cricket Board had already extended the helping hand to the BCCI to host the T20 league.
“Hopefully, in next couple of weeks (BCCI) will seek clearances from the government for the tournament (IPL) to be played in the UAE,” IPL governing Council chairman Brijesh Patel told India Today.
“The UAE government offered us to host the IPL in their country and we are very much aware of the facilities and situation there. The IPL (first leg) was played there (UAE) in 2014 so we know what we are looking at,” Patel added.
The IPL governing council meeting will be held within a week to discuss the future plans regarding the hosting of the tournament.
Meanwhile, the IPL was expected to take place from March 29 but it was later postponed indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic. The tournament will take place behind closed doors. In fact, it is known that BCCI could lose a whopping amount of INR 4000 crores if the IPL doesn’t happen in 2020.
BCCI is now confident of staging the IPL in UAE and it gives them a clear picture to host the event as the ICC has postponed the T20 World Cup to 2021.
