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Rajasthan Royals hoping for shortened, Indians-only IPL in near future

Speculations have been running wild ever since the IPL was postponed from March 29 to April 15 due to the crisis caused by the deadly novel coronavirus.

Rajasthan Royals hoping for shortened, Indians-only IPL in near future

Rajasthan Royals players. (Photo: IANS)

Rajasthan Royals Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ranjit Barathakur believes a shortened Indian Premier League with only local players could be good enough in these “extraordinary times” caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Speculations have been running wild ever since this year’s IPL was postponed from March 29 to April 15. But with India under a 21-day lockdown till April 14 in an attempt to curb the rapid increase of novel coronavirus cases, the 15th April start is out of the equation.

“We are open to a shortened tournament with only Indian players, at the end of the day it is the Indian Premier League.These are extraordinary times and the BCCI will do the best it can when things improve,” Barthakur said as quoted by PTI.

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“Earlier we could not think of an Indians-only IPL but now there is enough quality to choose from. It is better to have an Indians-only IPL than not at all. When can we have it? That BCCI decides. And I think that call be taken only post 15th April,” the Royals CEO added.

Meanwhile, a report on Tuesday had stated that the BCCI was considering the October-November window to host the 13th edition of the IPL with a hope that the ICC T20 World Cup, due to happen at that time, would be postponed.

However, the BCCI official, who hinted about the October-November window, has admitted that a lot of calculations will be involved for such a situation to arise. And he hoped that by October the world learns to tame the novel coronavirus, which has already killed over 42,000 people and affected over 8,58,000 humans.

“So, if the ICC does go ahead and decides to postpone the T20 World Cup due to the current scenario, only then we can look at the October-November window because even if a six-month border closedown is ordered by every country from say now, it ends by the start of October. But again, for that, the spread of the coronavirus needs to be stopped and things must come under human control. In short, there will have to be a lot of maths,” IANS quoted the official.

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