Not for the first time in history, the alarming rate at which COVID-19 is spreading, has put the BCCI’s plans of hosting the Indian Premier League (IPL) in jeopardy. It’s being said that India is already being hit by the third wave with the number of cases increasing exponentially with each passing day.
This, in turn, has once again disrupted BCCI’s plan for the upcoming IPL 2022 season. It was being reported earlier that the board didn’t want to host the cash-rich in the middle-east like in previous seasons. While 2020 saw the IPL being held entirely in UAE, 2021 saw it being held in two legs, the first in India, while it was again shifted to UAE due to the pandemic.
As per the latest reports, the BCCI does not plan to host the league out abroad, instead, they’re mulling over the concept of hosting the whole season in Mumbai. Three venues are currently being mooted wherein all the matches of the upcoming 15th IPL season could be held. The Wankhede Stadium, CCI and the DY Patil Stadium would be the obvious choices for BCCI.
Another route the BCCI could take is to have all 10 teams play in the home and away format. Moreover, the board is also pondering to change the starting date of the tournament from April and prepone it to March in order to decrease the number of double-headers and day-time matches.
However, a lot will depend on how the whole COVID-19 situation in India develops further. All of this undoubtedly could have a domino effect on the IPL 2022 mega auction could potentially get delayed.
For now, owing to the different guidelines state bodies have enforced to curb the spread of the virus could be one reason why the BCCI would choose to have the entire season in one place, like Mumbai for example. One thing that the organisers would like to avoid entirely this term is to have the season end abruptly like it happened last year.
