The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is exploring all the possible options to conduct the 13th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL).
While the specifics are still not known, BCCI President Sourav Ganguly on Wednesday (July 8) said India is keen to host the cash-rich tournament as it is the most important part of the country's domestic season.
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The IPL 2020, which was initially slated to start on March 29, currently remains suspended until further notice due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We want to have it, as I said that cricket needs to be back. For us, it’s off-season at the moment which has actually helped. We finished our domestic season in March and then we had to cancel the IPL, which is the most important part of our domestic season,” Ganguly said on India Today's Inspiration.
However, the BCCI chief added any decision on the IPL will be taken after the International Cricket Council takes a call on the fate of T20 World Cup, scheduled to be held in Australia from October 18 to November 15.
"We want IPL to happen because life needs to be back to normal and cricket needs to be back to normal but we don’t have a decision from the ICC regarding the T20 World Cup."
Although the board wants to stage the tournament at home, the chances are reportedly very grim with India having the third largest COVID-19 cases behind Brazil and USA.
Earlier this week, New Zealand became the latest country after UAE and Sri Lanka to present an offer to host the IPL in case the lucrative event can't be held in India.
Ganguly said he is not in favour of moving the IPL outside as it would result in increased costs for everyone.
"We keep hearing different things from the media but till actually its officially not told to the board members and the countries, you don’t know what is happening. But we want to host it, our first priority is India. Whatever time we get, even if we get 35-40 days we will host it,” the former India skipper stated.
"If it doesn’t happen in India because of Covid-19 because places like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai these are big teams in the IPL and at this stage, I don’t think you can put your hand on heart and say that cricket will happen in these places. We were keen to go to Ahmedabad to see the new stadium but I don’t know if we will be able to go there or not,” he continued
“It’s not easy at the moment to say that we are going to host it in India. First is whether we can (play the IPL) within the time frame because IPL has limited windows. Secondly, will it be in India. If it’s not then we think of going out, but where. Because going out becomes very expensive for the board, the franchises because of the currency conversion rates. So we are monitoring it and we are very keen to host it. We have our fingers crossed, we don’t want the year 2020 to finish without an IPL," he concluded.
