Still unexplained
The hunt for the origins of Covid-19 has for the past four years been a tangled web of politics, power struggles, and international finger-pointing.
At a time when cricket fans are eagerly waiting for some sort of a positive update, especially about the Indian Premier League (IPL), the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) treasurer Arun Dhumal has clarified that there has been no plan made about the tournament.
The IPL 2020, which was scheduled to be played from March 29 was earlier postponed to April 15 before it was suspended till further notice.
However, there have been various media reports suggesting BCCI is mulling alternative windows like August-September and October-November to stage the 2020’s edition of the cash-rich tournament. But all of the speculations lacked an official backing as the fate of IPL continues to hang in doubt.
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But the BCCI treasurer quashed all the “media speculations” and said that the board would only think about the IPL after the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic gets over.
Dhumal also said that there was no clarity if any foreign players would agree to travel to India even if the cash-rich tournament is hosted.
“We haven’t planned anything as of now. We can’t think of IPL getting back yet. Players coming in from other countries, whether they’ll be willing to come here and be quarantined for two weeks and play IPL is not known,” Dhumal said as quoted by Australian daily Sydney Herald.
“How can we think of IPL? This is all media speculation. There is nothing as of now. Once things get clear, then only will we be able to go back to the drawing board and think about re-starting cricket,” he added.
Meanwhile, he went on record saying that it will be “difficult” to host the forthcoming edition of the ICC T20 World Cup in Australia as well.
Dhumal stated that the players have been away from cricketing action for a long time and it will be a difficult call for every cricket board to send their players to play a tournament like World Cup without match practice and not being match ready.
“They will have been out of cricket for a long time. Would you want to be without training for that long and straight away go and play [the] World Cup?” he said.
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