The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 will be played from September 19 onwards at three bio-secure venues in the UAE- Dubai, Sharjah, and Abu Dhabi. The tournament was initially slated to begin from March 29 in India, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced it to be suspended indefinitely.
Even after moving the whole tournament to UAE, the BCCI is ensuring that it goes off smoothly and that includes testing the players and staff of all the eight franchises multiple times during their two-month stay in the UAE.
Apart from them, all the umpires, match-referees, and officials who have been chosen for duty in the IPL 2020 were tested for the Coronavirus upon landing in the UAE.
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In good news, all 12 Indian and three foreign umpires, besides five Indian match referees, have tested negative for the COVID-19 virus, while they spent their quarantine in their hotel rooms in UAE. Their quarantine period is about to end on a positive note, and they are ready to officiate in the much-awaited 13th IPL starting on September 19.
Each official was tested on the first, third, and fifth days of their six-day quarantine period, and they all have returned negative results, a Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) source told IANS.
The 20 match officials underwent the mandatory Covid-19 tests as per the requirements of the local governments of the three emirates- Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Sharjah, where 56 league matches will be played till November 3, besides the four play-off matches, including the final on November 10.
One team of these officials is lodged in Abu Dhabi and the other in Dubai. The Abu Dhabi team will officiate in 20 league matches to be played at Sheikh Zayed Stadium while the other team is a larger one and these officials will officiate in 24 league games in Dubai and 12 in Sharjah.
"Since the Covid-19 protocols in Abu Dhabi are the strictest of the three emirates, a set of umpires and referees will be permanently based there. And because there are no travel restrictions between Dubai and Sharjah, the officials stationed in Dubai will do games at both places; it will be a mix-and-match policy," the source told IANS.
The 12 Indian umpires are Anil Chaudhary, C. Shamshuddin, Virender Sharma, K.N. Ananthapadmanabhan, Nitin Menon, S. Ravi, Vineet Kulkarni, Yashwant Barde, Ulhas Gandhe, Anil Dandekar, K Srinivasan, and Pashchim Pathak.
The non-Indian umpires are Richard Illingworth of England, Australia's Paul Reiffel, and Chris Gaffaney of New Zealand. While the five match-referees are Javagal Srinath, Manu Nayar, V Narayan Kutty, Shakti Singh, and Prakash Bhatt.
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The officials will be required to wear a device that will track their movements once they are out of their quarantines. In quarantine, the officials had food being delivered, quite literally, at the doorstep of their hotel rooms. The breakfast was served in packed boxes while lunch and dinner had some more options. They would order food on a dedicated WhatsApp number of hotels.
"A menu list for lunch and dinner is given with the packed breakfast, which had Indian and continental options, including sambhar and vada, etc. The match officials would choose the dishes from that list and order on a hotel WhatsApp number mentioned in the menu. But that could change from Thursday when possibly a buffet system would be available at the end of the quarantine period," the source informed.
"They are happy with the five-star accommodation they have been given. Their rooms are big enough to do light exercises etc. But perhaps those who are looking for Hindi channels, they only have B4U for Hindi movies and another one for Hindi movie songs. Some of the officials are not too enthusiastic watching camel races, though," he said with a chuckle.
(IANS inputs)
