The 13th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) may get truncated, informed the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Sourav Ganguly on Saturday following a meeting with franchise owners, who do not seem very keen on a curtailed version of the lucrative league.
After BCCI’s decision of postponing the start of the tournament to April 15 (at the latest) from March 29 as a precautionary measure to prevent the spread of coronavirus in India, the authorities now tentatively have a 39-day window to complete 60 matches, in case of a full league. However, Ganguly believes within that short time frame, the schedule will be very demanding for the players as well as the organisers.
Hence, according to him a shortened version is the need of the hour.
“If it [IPL 13] happens, it has to be truncated because if it starts on April 15, then anyway 15 days are gone. How truncated, how many games, I can’t tell at the moment,” Ganguly told reporters after meeting officials from IPL franchises.
Meanwhile, during a chat with the Indian Express, a top official from a franchise provided an example of the IPL 2009 in South Africa, when the entire tournament was played within 37 days.
“We had an instance of holding the IPL in 37 days in South Africa. Fingers crossed, if the situation improves, we can follow that template. There’s no other window for the IPL, it has to happen in April-May. Hopefully, with summer approaching and a rapid rise in temperature, if we can start by April 20, we still might work on a full IPL,” he told
However, Ganguly also said that the board has not yet set any cut-off date to host the tournament and everything will depend on government directives.
“We can’t say that at the moment. As much as we want the IPL to happen, we are also careful about the security of the people,” he told reporters.