Indian T20 League: BCCI mulling over overseas venues amidst COVID surge

 Indian T20 League: BCCI mulling over overseas venues amidst COVID surge

Sourav Ganguly (Photo by PUNIT PARANJPE/AFP via Getty Images)

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) are planning to stage the upcoming 15th edition of the Indian Premier League (ITL) in India. Due to the current COVID-19 in the country, the BCCI have started to get a little anxious. While the main focus though is to stage the tournament in India, the BCCI have started considering overseas venues as options.

The IPL is tentatively set to begin in eerily April. It is also set for expansion as two more teams have been added to the mix. “We are exploring all options which include overseas IPL as well. But our focus is to host IPL in India for sure. As of now our priority is the auction, we will soon take a call,” said the source as quoted by CricTracker.

There were reports that BCCI is also considering reducing the number of venues for the mega event. The BCCI have to make a lot of tough calls in the coming weeks and it will be interesting to see which way they go. However, one thing is sure that they want the tournament to go ahead at any cost as it is a huge source of revenue for the board.

The entire ITL 2020 and the second leg of ITL 2021 was held in UAE. It was a tale of two halves as BCCI had planned to hold the ITL 2021 in India behind closed doors. However, due to a spike in cases, the BCCI had to suspend the league midway. It remains to be seen if BCCI considers UAE as an option to host the 15th edition of ITL.

Meanwhile, India reported 1, 59,632 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday (January 9). According to the data shared by Union Health Ministry, of these 3,632 cases were of Omicron variant of COVID-19.

Bethive Admin

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