The Indian Premier League’s 13th edition on Tuesday (April 14) headed towards an indefinite postponement as the country extended the lockdown till May 3 to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.
BCCI has not formalized a new window yet for the cash-rich event, which was originally slated to be held between March 29 and May 24.
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As per a report published in ESPNcricinfo, the decision to reschedule the T20 league was discussed by the BCCI's top officials including Sourav Ganguly (president), Jay Shah (secretary), Brijesh Patel (IPL chairman) over a conference call on Tuesday evening.
The report further claims that the BCCI will formally announce their decision after organising a meeting of the IPL Governing Council this week.
This is the second time the BCCI has been forced to postpone the IPL. Last month, the start of the competition was rescheduled to April 15 as the central government had imposed a nationwide three-week lockdown.
With the chief ministers of various states making it clear last week that another lockdown extension is on the cards, BCCI was prepared to face this situation.
India’s richest sports body was also hopeful of staging a month-long IPL behind closed doors with the final scheduled on the first week of June, but now all those plans have to be dropped as the Coronavirus cases in the country has crossed 11,000 with 377 fatalities so far. Globally, the epidemic has claimed more than 126,700 lives and infected in excess of 2,000,200 people thus far.
With several other cricketing nations under lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19, the participation of overseas cricketers in the IPL was also in jeopardy. Therefore, the BCCI was left with little choice but to put off the tournament.
The stakeholders will have to face a huge setback if the IPL 13 gets called off completely. At the auction last December, a total 62 players were roped in by the eight franchises who spent INR 140.30 crores. As per the regulations, owners make payment to the players in two installments - the first a week before the tournament starts and the rest after the season is over.
(Inputs from ESPNcricinfo)
