Governing Council Chairman Arun Dhumal: Arun Dhumal, the chairman of the Governing Council of the Indian Premier League (IPL), said he is confident of hosting the remaining part of the tournament in the home-and-away format in India, depending on how the dates come out for the upcoming General Elections in the country.The BCCI has only released the IPL 2024 schedule for the first 21 games, to be played from March 22 to April 7.
“Even in 2019, the IPL was played in a home-away format in its entirety despite the General Elections. This time, too, once the dates for the elections are out and we have clarity about the dates and the phases for the polls, we can work out the next phase of the IPL.”
“We would ideally want to have home-and-away games, but in case there’s a problem figuring out the (time), we will see how we can accommodate that. The idea is that nobody should get an advantage over the other team and there has to be uniformity. There should be equal opportunities for the team,” said Dhumal to Sportstar.
He also ruled out the possibility of a portion of the tournament being held outside India. In 2009, the IPL was completely held in South Africa and in 2014, the first half of the competition was in the UAE. But in 2019, the tournament was entirely held in India, even as the elections happened from April 11 to May 19. “Given the time we have in April and May, it would be very difficult to take this tournament to any other country. If you talk about Dubai, it would be very hot around that time, and other teams have their bilateral commitments.”
“Given the number of matches we have, I don’t think not many venues can take this load in such a short time. The team at BCCI is best equipped and we will take it as a challenge and have a good tournament,” he added.
Dhumal also hinted at the number of double-headers being increased to complete the tournament by May 25 or 26, so that players get ample time to prepare for the Men’s T20 World Cup, starting in the West Indies and USA from June 1-29. “This time the challenge is that we are starting with the T20 World Cup in the first week of June, and we were planning to close the tournament by May 25 or May 26 as the team will have to travel to the US and that’s a different territory altogether.”
“(For the) first time, the tournament will be held there and it’s a new thing, so the players need to be there early to have some sort of practice games ahead of the tournament. There could be a situation where we will have to keep a little bit of a gap, keeping election schedules in mind. We might have to increase double headers, but we will be able to give better clarity once the polls are over.”
Dhumal signed off by saying there will be a mega auction ahead of IPL 2025. “We will have the mega auction for sure, where you get to choose three-four players and then you have a new team. That makes it more interesting, and that format will continue.”
“Hopefully, the mega auction will be as big and as good as we have had earlier given newer talents coming in from India and other countries. Teams like Afghanistan have also benefitted as they could showcase their talent.”