BCCI President Sourav Ganguly said that it is easier to say in hindsight that IPL should have been called off earlier due to rise in COVID-19 cases.
BCCI president Sourav Ganguly has categorically ruled out the possibility of the rest of the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) taking place in India. The IPL 2021 was suspended on May 4 after the cases started to emerge inside the bio-bubble and slowly not one, not two, four teams got affected due to the COVID-19.
Indian players have two windows available to play the rest of the IPL, one in July after the World Test Championship (WTC) final and one in September after the Englalnbnd series and before the ICC T20 World Cup, however, the first one was also ruled out as Ganguly revealed that India will be playing a limited-overs series in Sri Lanka before heading back to England.
Speaking to Sportstar, Ganguly said that it was easier to say in hindsight that the tournament should have been postponed earlier as the decision came when India was seeing daily cases in excess of 4 Lakh.
“India is supposed to go to Sri Lanka for three ODIs and five T20Is. 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,” he said.
“You can say that now in hindsight that the IPL should have been called off earlier. Mumbai and Chennai (bio bubbles) did not have cases. Only when the IPL reached Delhi and Ahmedabad did the cases rise. People will say a lot of things in any case. The English Premier League had so many people affected. But they could reschedule the matches. But you can’t do that with IPL. You stop it for seven days and it is done. Players go back home and then the process of quarantine starts from scratch.
“…we would have continued if there were no cases. We would have completed the IPL. The players were in the bubble and there were no crowds at the venues. Players were not getting infected. Once the players got affected, we called it off. Look at leagues going around the world. They have had Covid cases, but they have continued.”
Ganguly said the BCCI was able to conduct Vijay Hazare and Syed Mushtaq Ali competition along with the India-England series due to relatively lower cases in the country.
“Creating the bio-bubbles and sticking to the discipline were paramount. We had cooperation from all stakeholders. Covid cases were fewer in December-February, and we could go ahead with some domestic cricket. We had plans for the junior cricketers, too, for this July, but the second wave has left us with little choice but to cancel it.
“Because the numbers were down, and we had just two teams. The bio-bubbles were there. We had 760 players in the bio-bubble (domestic season), but the key was that the Covid numbers were down across the country – 7,000 a day. Now we have more than four lakh daily cases," Ganguly added.
The second wave of COVID-19 have wreaked havoc in India as it recorded over 4,03,738 fresh cases and 4,092 deaths in the last 24 hours. The cumulative caseload reached 2,22,96,414, including 37,36,648 active cases, 1,83,17,404 discharges and 2,42,362 deaths.
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