This year’s Indian Premier League has been a success despite the on-going pandemic. Typically, an IPL season is held between March to May. However, because of the pandemic, this year’s season was pushed to the latter part of the year, which is in September.
Even before the recent season ended, people are already talking about next year’s season. Since the league was able to return this year, people don’t see any reasons for the next season to not happen. And indeed, IPL will be back for another season next year. Whether when this will remain unknown.
According officials IPL 2021 is likely to happen in April-May. He is also confident that India will be able to host the next season. It is known that the recent season was held in the UAE because of the rising COVID 19 cases in India. Ganguly is also confident that India will be able to host England’s tour and the entire domestic season with strict protocols in place.
Ganguly spoke about this with India Today’s Inspiration. He explained how the recent season had to run and said, “We did not know whether we would complete this tournament because there was never a bio-bubble created in the past. We took a lot of understanding from the way England hosted the series in England. But this had far more risk because that was bilateral and here it was about 300 people in Dubai. All in one place, although the Covid numbers in the UAE were much lesser still you needed one player or one person from the group to get infected. It happened at the start with CSK. It was a bit of a scare for all of us whether this will go through. I spoke to Jay multiple times and he was also worried. We have done it but if something goes wrong, what will happen? But luckily, it has been good so far.”
He also said, “Yeah. April, May, we’ll have another one [IPL 2021 season]. No, no it’s not true [the speculations of IPL 2021 in UAE]. The UAE was only for the IPL. Yeah, yeah. We will host England in India. We will host domestic cricket in India. Ranji Trophy, we will create a bio bubble and we will do it.”
He also insisted, “We’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. ISL starting in November in Goa, we’ll be fine. The scare, that is not there anymore and the IPL has helped a lot.”
Now that we already know that IPL will be back next year, there are now news and updates on how the next season is going to be like. Recent reports have said that the BCCI is also planning to make next year’s season more exciting by adding two new teams in the mix.
The BBCI has already said that it is likely that two new teams will be part of the next season. The discussion of this and the inclusion of cricket in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics are two of the key items that the group has listed on the agenda of the upcoming BCCI meeting scheduled on December 24 in Mumbai.
According to reports Ganguly and BCCI secretary, Jay Shah had an informal discussion on adding two teams for the next season. It will be at the upcoming meeting when a formal proposal will be laid upon the members of the IPL Governing Council.
Aside from the two big agendas to be discussed in the meeting, another matter to be discussed is the election of two representatives in the IPL Governing Council and the induction or appointment of two members of the General Body. Getting one representative of the Indian Cricketers’ Association will also be discussed including the appointments for the roles of Ombudsman and Ethics Officer, BCCI’s representative to the ICC, Cricket Committee and Standing Committee, and the Umpires’ Committee. In the said meeting, the state representatives will also be updated on the matters concerning the ICC, the National Cricket Academy, the 2021 World T20, and India’s Future Tours Program. A total of 23 items will be discussed in the said meeting.
According to reports, when it comes to the two new teams that will be added next year if it gets approved, Indian conglomerates Adani Group and RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, which entered Rising Pune Supergiant for two IPL seasons, have already expressed their interest.
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