IPL 2021 Venues – Rajasthan Royals, Sunrisers Hyderabad: This piece of news won’t go down well with the fans and management of Rajasthan Royals (RR), Punjab Kings (KXIP) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH). In the first round of discussions in regard to conduct of IPL 2021, BCCI has decided to limit the 14th edition of the league to only 6 cities. As per the information available host cities for SRH (Hyderabad), Punjab Kings (Chandigarh) and RR (Jaipur) are not in the shortlisted list of cities that will conduct the IPL 2021.
The Indian board for now has shortlisted 6 cities for IPL 2021 namely Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Delhi. Mumbai has been added to the list on Saturday evening after local government gave permissions to conduct the matches in the city but ‘without fans’
InsideSport.co reached out to some of the franchises but were told that BCCI has not officially communicated anything to them till date.
“Whatever we hear we are hearing from media. IPL Governing council hasn’t communicated anything to us till date about the venues or the schedule. It will be heartbreaking for our local fans if our home city miss out on the IPL matches. It will be 2nd year in succession that IPL matches will not be conducted in our cities”, said one of the member of the franchise whose city is not in the shortlisted city list that will conduct the IPL 2021.
Caravan model can be considered for IPL 2021
To avoid most of traveling BCCI is also mulling over CARAVAN style of IPL edition this year. This means that the teams can be divided into two groups – with each group will play certain set of matches in the same cities before moving on to the next leg of matches in other cities.
IPL 2021: IPL Governing Council meeting likely to be before 8th March
IPL 2021 Venue, Dates and Schedule: It is being reliably learnt that IPL Governing Council (IPL GC) meeting will be scheduled in first week of March to decide all matters pending related to IPL 2021. IPL GC in 1st Week of March: The IPL Chairman Brijesh Patel will have a task at hand along with both BCCI President Sourav Ganguly and Secretary Jay Shah as they all sit down to come up with a most crucial decision on where will IPL 2021 held
For now the BCCI has shortlisted 5 venues which is a clear indication that they want IPL 2021 to take place in India itself. BCCI are in a catch-22 situation whether the cricketing extravaganza should be held in India or in UAE. With the increase in COVID-19 cases in some parts of the country, there have been calls of moving the league to UAE for the consecutive year.
BCCI Treasurer Arun Dhumal said the Indian cricket board is still monitoring the situation. “We are still in a dicey situation due to the increase in COVID-19 cases,” he told InsideSport last week.
Decision 2 – IPL 2021 dates: When will the IPL 2021 begin?
Though it is being speculated that IPL 2021 will start from April 11th, the Indian cricket board is yet to officially announce the dates for the 14th edition. BCCI will take the final call, says Dhumal, on the matter after the Test series between India and England which ends on March 8.
“We will finalise the dates after India vs England test series, currently we don’t have definite answers,” Dhumal said.
Decision 3 – IPL 2021 schedule and fixtures?
According to the information available with InsideSport.co, the IPL broadcasters have requested BCCI to finalize the full schedule and fixtures at least 1 month in advance. According to the broadcaster they have to make necessary arrangements for IPL 2021 so the final schedules are requested at least 30 days before the 1st bowl is bowled in IPL 2021.
“The broadcaster will need at least a month’s time to make preparations for its execution and also sell inventory. Hence a decision on the same must be taken soon,” a source in the know-how said.
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