Here are some key questions in life- to hold or not to hold? To have or not to have? Similarly, where the question concerns the sporting world, then there largely be only one direction. So what is that? “To play or not to play!” And this fundamentally seems the truth of the matter where much of the world around is in a state of a lockdown.
The question, above anything for the cricket fan, has only concerned itself with the Indian Premier League, which was due for a starry thirteenth edition. Having first begun in 2008, the IPL in 2020 was to have been the 13th edition of the premier T20 franchise league of the famous cricketing format. It’s a league, that, it’s needless to say, has practically brought much of the sporting world’s talents from around the world into a shared T20 vision.
Never before (prior to the start of the IPL) did the world even conceive of that dressing room where a South African, Australian, New Zealand, Sri Lankan, English and West Indian cricketer would share the resources, ideas and whatnot with an Indian counterpart.
That’s precisely the power of the now-famous Indian Premier League, one which currently awaits further action, having been laying low ever since the country was reduced to a standstill state of motionlessness.
So up until now, the lockdown due to Coronavirus had won the battle with the IPL. Therefore, there was a suggestion being made, one that climbed to make many a headlines with the world reading about it from the four-walled space: an IPL in Sri Lanka.
What? Really? An IPL in Sri Lanka? Well, why not? This was, up until April 16, 2020, a proposition that was being debated and now, finally, the deciding body, the big, influential governors of the IPL- the BCCI- have spoken ending the deadlock of silence.
And with this, the big anticipation about the mega T20 festival of fun and thrill also gets an eventual and long-awaited answer.
So what is the answer after all? Is an IPL in Sri Lanka finally going to take place? And if so, then what are the further details since one would definitely likely to know.
Well, for starters, and this may just break a few hearts- it doesn’t seem very likely that one will get to see an IPL in Sri Lanka, the country that has given the cricketing world timeless legends in the form of Sanath Jayasuriya, Muttiah Muralidaran, Arvinda De Silva, Arjuna Ranatunga and Rangana Herath.
So now the question is, just why is the IPL in Sri Lanka not seemingly the answer to break the mundane?
Well apparently, even as the Sri Lankan cricket board was keen to host the IPL back in the Sanga-Mahela country, the BCCI have simply shared that there isn’t much sense in talking about the proposition at this point in time.
Moreover, the reason is also clear. The BCCI, in denying the idea that an IPL in Sri Lanka could be a possibility, have shared that it doesn’t make sense to discuss such a proposal in a ‘closed world’, battling the COVID-19 Pandemic right now.
That being said, what might have been the motivations behind the famous island nation putting up its hand in wanting to host the IPL, taking the burden off from India?
It’s a known fact that when compared to India, Sri Lanka have had far too fewer cases of the deadly and infectious COVID-19 virus.