According to Cricbuzz, BCCI has shortlisted Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, and Delhi as the potential venues for IPL 2021. This decision follows the recent reports about IPL taking place in multiple cities.
Despite the discussions around hosting the entire tournament in Mumbai’s four stadiums (Wankhede, Brabourne, DY Patil, and Reliance Stadium), the city is not on the list due to the sudden rise of cases in Maharashtra.
“Mumbai is still not final and it is because the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, headed by Uddhav Thackeray, has not yet given the final go-ahead,” an unnamed source told Cricbuzz. Maharashtra has become the epicenter of the second wave of the pandemic, so State Government’s apprehension regarding hosting a mega-event like IPL is quite valid.
Since IPL 2021 is now likely to take place in India, the matches may take place in a cluster-caravan format, where the teams will be split into two groups and play several matches at the same venues in two different cities before getting re-shuffled and moving to two other venues. The tournament is scheduled to start around April 10.
Last year, the highly popular league was first postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak in March but was fortunately shifted to UAE. This time around, the board is hopeful that the relatively improved situation will allow the T20 tournament to happen in India. Since few stadiums have also opened the gate to the audience in some capacity during the current India vs England series, the legion of cricket fans in India may hopefully attend the highly popular tournament after a break of almost two years.