BCCI President Sourav Ganguly has revealed that the remainder of IPL 2021 will not be happening in India. This comes after there were numerous reports on resuming the tournament somewhere in September.
After covid cases emerged in the bio bubbles of various teams, BCCI decided to suspend IPL 2021 at the start of last week. As Covid-19 broke into the bio-bubble created by the BCCI, the governing council had to put a break to the tournament midway through the season.
While talking to Sportstar over the weekend, Sourav Ganguly confirmed that in any case, IPL 2021 will not happen in India. He insisted that there are organisational hazards due to the long quarantine protocols, making it difficult for the tournament to go ahead in the country.
“There are lots of organisational hazards like 14-day quarantine. It can’t happen in India. This quarantine is tough to handle. Too early to say how we can find a slot to complete the IPL.”
BCCI has previously garnered criticism regarding the condition of the league in India, amidst the rising covid cases during the devastating second wave of the pandemic. Ganguly had previously insisted that there were no regrets for BCCI about staging the country in India. He once again admitted that they would have continued if there were no cases in the team bubbles and gone ahead to complete the IPL 2021.
In hindsight, there’s always the debate that the IPL should have been called off earlier, but Mumbai and Chennai legs did not have cases. During the second leg of the tournament in Delhi and Ahmedabad, the situation got worse. However, BCCI should have opted to stage the tournament at one venue rather than staging games across six cities. Travelling does increase the risk of infection, which probably led to the suspension of the tournament.