With the rising COVID-19 cases across the country, the BCCI is planning to stage the entire IPL 2022 in Maharashtra itself, TOI reported on Monday (January 10).

According to the report, the Indian board is looking at organizing the cash-rich tournament across three venues in Mumbai – Wankhede Stadium, Brabourne Stadium, DY Patil Stadium, in addition to the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Gahunje, near Pune.

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"On January 5, Hemang Amin (BCCI's interim CEO and the Chief Operating Officer of the IPL) approached Vijay Patil (Mumbai Cricket Association president) in this regard, on the sidelines of the MCA's Apex Council meeting. Subsequently, a few days later, Amin and Patil met Sharad Pawar at the NCP supremo's residence.

“Pawar has given his green signal to the BCCI's proposal. During this week or in the next 10 days, he, the BCCI and MCA officials will meet Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and state chief secretary Debashish Chakrabarty to arrange for the necessary permission in this regard. There should be no problem on this front, as the tournament will be played in a strict bio bubble with no crowds, and the players and officials will be tested frequently," TOI quoted reliable sources as saying.

The sources further said that holding the matches in Mumbai and Pune will eliminate flight travel, which was one of the concerns for the BCCI after COVID cases in the bio-bubble last year.

“As of now, the plan is to stage the IPL in India. If, however, the Maharashtra option too is ruled out in the future, then the BCCI might be forced to take the IPL to the UAE again,” revealed a source to TOI.

The IPL 2022 will be a 10-team event, with the addition of two new franchises based in Lucknow and Ahmedabad.

During the IPL team auction in October last year, the RP-Sanjiv Goenka group and international equity investment firm CVC Capital had won the bid for INR 7,090 crore and INR 5,625 crores respectively.

(With TOI inputs)