The buzz revolving around the dates for the start of IPL 2020 amidst the pandemic situation seems to end the long wait as the IPL Governing Council chairman; Mr. Brijesh Patel revealed a huge announcement regarding it. The 2020 Indian Premier League (IPL) will be played between September 19 and November 10 in the UAE.
As India & many countries across the globe are fighting a battle against the coronavirus from last 4 months, the return of international cricket proved to be a promising entertainment. The ongoing series between England & Westindies has reached its penultimate stage after England leveled the series 1-1 at Manchester earlier this week. Ben Stokes had a reason to celebrate as the left-right handed all-rounder displaced the WI captain to a spot below in the ICC all-rounder rankings in Test format. With the last encounter between the 2 sides promising to be a cracker decider at the Old Trafford which begins today, the announcement of the 13th edition of IPL has certainly added smiles to the cricketing fanatics across the globe.
Last few months witnessed many global sports event including the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup& Tokyo Olympics 2020 to re-schedule its original planned dates owing to the situation. After a long debate & brainstorming of conducting the nation’s favourite and very own IPL, Brijesh Patel – the Governing Council chairman of the league announced the start of the tournament on September 19, with the final to be played on November 08 or 10, 2020 in the United Arab Emirates.
With the details concerning to the departure of the teams and the schedule of the tournament is expected to be disclosed in the meeting of the council next week, this would be the third instance after 2009 (South Africa) and 2014 (UAE & India), when IPL will be seen crossing the national boundaries. Cricket South Africa confirmed last evening regarding the issue of NOC’s to all its 10 players set to participate in the IPL this year. The women’s cricket team too started their preparations underway ahead of the training camp on Sunday with the hopes of travelling to England for a series of limited over international.
A designated operations team from BCCI is expected to head to Dubai, Abu Dhabi & Sharjah to examine the preparations for hosting the IPL and also the arrangement of chartered planes if the UAE airlines fail to resume its operations.
IPL 2020 is certainly expected to everyone’s level of excitement with a high rise in the temperature ranging above 35 degrees celsius in UAE & comparatively chilled weather back in the sub-continent during the scheduled time-frame.
