Sunrisers Hyderabad wicketkeeper-batsman Wriddhiman Saha made a big statement suggesting UAE should’ve retained the hosting rights for the Indian Premier League even this summer as that would’ve reduced the threat of COVID-19 in the tournament.
Saha is one of the players who tested positive when the BCCI and IPL governing council suspended the lucrative T20 competition on May 4. Only 29 of the 60 games were played as per schedule across Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi and Ahmedabad, with the tournament ultimately not proving immune from the second wave of the pandemic in India.
Saha indicated that the bio-bubbles in place for the IPL 2021 in India weren’t as safe as the ones deployed for everyone’s safety in the Middle East last winter. The 36-year-old hinted he doesn’t feel it was wise of the BCCI to organise the tournament in the country during a health emergency outside.
“It’s the job of the stakeholders to assess it, but the only thing I would say is that there was not a single individual during our training in UAE (last year), not even a ground staff,”
Saha said during an interview with the PTI.
“Here there would be people, kids peeping from nearby walls. I don’t want to comment much but we saw how the IPL went off smoothly in UAE in 2020 and then it started in India this year with cases on the rise.”
“I don’t know what would have happened, but definitely I feel it would have been better off in UAE this time as well. It’s for the stakeholders to look into it,”
he added.
Speculations are rife as to when the rest of the IPL 2021 could be held by the BCCI, which has a herculean task of finding a new window for the competition in a busy cricketing calendar.
Initially, it was believed that July could be the ideal month to play the remaining 31 games, but BCCI president Sourav Ganguly confirmed recently that India will be travelling to Sri Lanka for a white-ball series in that slot.
Thus, the only possible new window for the tournament is in September, just after India’s Test tour of the UK and prior to the T20 World Cup scheduled for October-November.
