The IPL is not going anywhere. The 2024 edition of the tournament will be played entirely in India and a reconfirmation of this came after the Election Commission announced the schedule for the Lok Sabha polls on Saturday. IPL chairman Arun Dhumal confirmed that there was never any question of taking the IPL abroad.
“The BCCI’s position from Day 1 has been that we want to conduct it in India only, under the guidance of the central government. Now that the elections have been announced and we know which states and which cities are going to the polls when, in the coming three-four days we will work out the next course of schedule,” Dhumal told RevSportz.
Asked if in the next phases of the tournament the majority of the games would be played on a home-and-away basis, he said: “Yeah, as much as we can. Given the schedule, we would like to work that out so that there’s equal opportunity for everyone.”
It is learnt that the BCCI has already sent an email to the IPL franchises in this regard.
On February 22, when the BCCI put out the schedule for the first two weeks of the tournament, it mentioned that it would work in tandem with the local authorities to finalise the schedule for the remainder of the season, “taking into account the polling dates”.
Today, the Election Commission announced that the elections would be held in seven phases from April 19 to June 1. The IPL, meanwhile, is starting on March 22 and the BCCI has announced the schedule for the first 21 games until April 7. It is learnt that there could be more double-headers in the next two phases of the tournament. The first phase has four double-headers.
Earlier, on January 16, Dhumal told RevSportz that the tournament would be played entirely in India. “The IPL, we want to do it in India only,” he had said.
“We will be in touch with the government agencies to figure out what will be the best way. Since the schedule of elections is coming out hopefully in March, we may come out with the initial schedule of say about two weeks and we will work it out with the Election Commission and agencies as and when there’s some clarity on the election schedule. Accordingly, we want to work around that, so that it can be organised in India itself.”
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