IPL 2021 Part 2 : BCCI’s Hurdles In Delivering Remainder Of IPL In UAE

Indian Premier League 2021 remaining edition is all set to commence in the UAE. During the BCCI AGM held on 29th May, the IPL governing council formally conveyed to the media that they would conduct the remaining leg of IPL 2021 during Sep 18-Oct 10 in the UAE. This decision was taken due to the eagerness to complete the remaining portion of IPL 2021.

Team India
Image Source- BCCI

If the matches had not been held, BCCI would have suffered a loss of around 2200 crore. But it is not going to be very easy for the richest cricket board to conduct the matches during Sep-Oct in the UAE. Let us try to figure out the reasons.

Also Read : IPL 2021 In UAE : New Venues, New Schedule, Dates, Stadium, Live Streaming, Team Squad, Prediction

Availability Of Foreign Players:

The biggest challenge in conducting IPL 2021 will be the availability of all foreign players. The England Cricket Board has already made it very clear that their players won’t be a part of the IPL 2021 UAE leg. Similarly, the cricket players from New Zealand, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are also doubtful. Even a few Australian players such as Pat Cummins, Adam Zampa have said that they won’t be a part of IPL 2021.

West Indies domestic cricket league CPL will end on 18th September. BCCI is in touch with WCB for a possible preponement of this league to accommodate the West Indies players. Seeing the importance of the foreign players in IPL, it would be interesting to see how different franchises cope with this.

Also Read : IPL 2021: Who Will Win IPL 2021 Final ?

Pitch Condition Leading To The ICC Cricket T20 World Cup 2021:

Another primary concern will be the condition of the pitch. UAE has only 3 International cricket stadiums for matches. If IPL games are organized in these pitches, it will deteriorate them in a big way. It is almost certain that ICC will shift the t20 world cup 2021 to the UAE. This will be a massive problem for the ICC to conduct the world cup. Generally, ICC takes the stadium in its custody 15 days before the start of any ICC event. This is done to make the pitch and ground ready.

Also Read : IPL 2022 : MEGA AUCTION RULES

ICC cricket world cup 2021 is scheduled to start from 18th October. If the tournament is held in the UAE, then the BCCI will have to look at a possible situation of conducting IPL 2021 in one stadium at a time. For example, they can conduct first week matches in 1 stadium, second-week matches in another stadium, etc. This way, ICC can manage all the stadiums and pitches beforehand.

Increase In Operational Cost Including Bubble-to-Bubble Transfer

BCCI will have to stress a lot on the logistics issue ahead of IPL 2021 UAE edition. BCCI will have to incur additional cost in this IPL leg. If the average price of a single day room in India is 5,000(subsidized rate), in UAE, the exact cost increases to around 13,000. They need to also look at the bio-to-bio bubble transfer of all the players. The BCCI will have to arrange special chartered flights for many groups of players coming from a different location. All these are added costs that have to be taken care of. Let’s hope that the BCCI manages to overcome all these hindrances leading up to IPL 2021 UAE leg.