Even after postponing the IPL from March 29 to April 15, the rescheduled start looks highly unlikely with India under a 21-day nationwide lockdown.
Pat Cummins file image. (Photo by JEREMY NG / AFP)
Australia pacer Pat Cummins, who represents the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) franchise in the Indian Premier League, on Friday informed that his team officials were still confident about the fate of the tournament which looks highly unlikely to happen this year due to the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Everything is changing, literally every single day. The last I spoke to (KKR team officials), they said they’re still really confident and hopeful it (the IPL) will be on at some stage,” Cummins was quoted as saying on the digital platform of Cricket Australia.
The IPL 2020, which was scheduled to be played from March 29, has been postponed to April 15. However, the postponed start looks highly unlikely as well with 21-day nationwide lockdown till April 14 being practised in India where over 2,500 have been affected and more than 70 killed by the novel coronavirus.
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“They obviously haven’t cancelled it or anything like that yet. It’s still a bit of a holding pattern, so we’re in contact with our teams every few days. Obviously everyone is still really keen for it to go ahead, but the priority is to minimise risk of (the virus) spreading. It’s going to be pretty tight. I think the (Indian) travel ban is in place until April 14 so I don’t expect anything too soon to happen,” Cummins added.
Meanwhile, KKR on Thursday pledged to make a donation to the Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations (PM-CARES) Fund that has been created to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This crisis is not going to pass in a hurry, it will take its time and its toll on all of us. It will also show us that there isn’t really a choice between looking out for ourselves and looking out for one another. There’s nothing more obvious in the spread of this pandemic than the fact that each one of us is inextricably connected to each other, without any distinction,” co-owner Shah Rukh Khan said in an official statement.
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