It's official: IPL can't happen in India this year

In all likelihood, the Indian Premier League (IPL), which was suspended mid-way last week, cannot be held this year and even if it does, the tournament certainly can’t be hosted in India, where COVID cases are shooting up every day.

The IPL 2021 was suspended midway after several players were tested COVID positive though they were in a bio-bubble.

In an interview with Sportstar, Sourav Ganguly, chief of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), said the IPL cannot be held in India because of “too many organizational hazards”. He also said that given the congested international calendar, it would be too early to predict if the Board would be able to find a slot in 2021.

When asked if the truncated season could be completed in England after the World Test Championship final and the before the start of the five-Test series in UK, Ganguly said, “The Indian team will travel to Sri Lanka for a limited-overs series, comprising three ODIs and five T20Is in July.”

To a query, if the IPL should have been cancelled much earlier, the former Indian captain told Sportstar, “ You can say that now that the IPL should have been called off earlier. Mumbai and Chennai (legs) did not have cases when we started it. Only when the IPL reached Delhi and Ahmedabad did the cases shoot up. 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.”