The novel COVID-19 or coronavirus has disturbed the world, including the cricket world. Like many other crucial programmes in cricket, the IPL 2020 has also been postponed due to this pandemic. Former Australian opener Matthew Hayden has opened up his view whether the IPL 2020 should be organised soon after handling this crisis.
The 13th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) was initially scheduled to run between 29th March and 24th May 2020. While all the eight teams were focusing on beginning their team practice ahead of the beginning of this tournament, the coronavirus has forced to postpone this tournament for an indefinite period.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is still hopeful but also currently clueless about the fate of this tournament. If the pandemic gets controlled, the BCCI will try to find out a new window in this calendar year to organise the IPL 2020.
Certainly, the IPL could exist without foreign players: Matthew Hayden
The former Chennai Super Kings (CSK) opener Matthew Hayden feels that the IPL 2020 can be organised without the foreign players, especially when it is currently tough to gather foreigners in this crisis. However, talking about the possibility of the IPL 2020, the 48-year-old Hayden still gave more importance to the health measurement, which must be uncompromised at this moment.
Hayden told IANS, “Certainly, the IPL could take exist without foreign players. I think it would be a product that is being compromised naturally because foreign players do add a lot to the IPL. They raise the level of awareness and excitement among fans. Getting nations together has infact made IPL the fun that it has been.
“But in conditions like this, it could go on without foreign players and it should go on if all health issues have been uncompromised and the game can proceed in clean stadiums.”
Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have also openly wished to host the IPL 2020. However, the BCCI hasn’t talked about these yet.
Hayden additionally feels that if the BCCI doesn’t find confident to organise the IPL 2020 in India due to the safety reason, they should focus on the other nations. Taking the option of Sri Lanka, Hayden specially mentioned the Colombo city where it has three-four different international venues.
In the case of cancellation of the IPL 2020, the BCCI can lose the revenue of around INR 4000 crore.