Image credit- BCCI|IPL/Twitter
As the COVID-19 cases are rapidly rising in the country, the BCCI has a plan B and now looking at hosting the entire IPL tournament in Maharashtra itself.
The board is looking at organizing the league across 3 venues in Mumbai which are Brabourne Stadium, Wankhede Stadium, DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai, and the Maharashtra Cricket Association stadium in Gahunje, near Pune.
In the next 10 days, the BCCI and MCA officials will meet Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and state chief secretary, Debashish Chakrabarty, to take the necessary permission required to host the tournament. There should be no problem as the tournament will be played in a bio-bubble with officials and players getting tested regularly and also no crowds allowed in the stadium.
Even though Maharashtra had 44,388 new cases on Sunday and Mumbai registered 19,474 new cases. In its latest order on Covid-19 restrictions on Saturday, had allowed for sporting events if the rules are followed properly.
The latest order of the Maharashtra government will allow the National and International level competitions which are already scheduled with the following rules
- No crowd,
- Bio-bubble for all the players and officials
- RAT/RT-PCR every third day for all the players and officials.
Making the whole tournament be played in just 3 stadiums in Mumbai and one stadium nearby Pune will help the BCCI get rid of air travel during the tournament, which was one of the major reasons for COVID-19 cases in the bio-bubble last year.
