With the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) unable to figure out a plan to host the Indian Premier League and speculations surfacing all over media, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) CEO Venky Mysore has urged for the tournament to be played in Mumbai and Pune.

Mysore wants the 13the edition of IPL to follow the 2014 model which had seen the first few matches of the cash-rich competition being played in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

He supported his logic with the fact that Mumbai and Pune provide more than four stadiums within short distance which could also help the organisers cut the travel expenses.

“We did this in the UAE – we played in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah. There were no flights, just buses that were taking players back and forth. If we were to think of something like that, the idea that was tossed around was what if you think of a city like Mumbai. There are already four grounds here if you include the Reliance Ground. And if you think about Pune, which is only two and a half hours away, you could easily contain the whole activity,” he said while speaking to ESPN Cricinfo’s StumpMic podcast.

“You can assign one hotel to each team, make sure each team has two buses, fully sanitised and proper distancing maintained. So the logistics of travel is completely removed – no airports, no flights. You reduce the risk to a level people feel comfortable and can live with it,” he added.

During the same podcast, the KKR CEO said that technology would play a key role in dictating terms in post-COVID-19 cricket. He said rather than getting deterred due to suspension of cricket and sports all around the globe, the officials have the opportunity to “re-imagine” the business strategy and should think of using technology to sustain the popularity of big tournaments like IPL.

“Technology is going to play a massive role,” Mysore said. “I am just saying, if you’re thinking out of the box – an LED wall in stands where, through social media, [fans] can virtually be present there. There are people who’ll be reacting the same way if they were physically at the ground. People have said something about simulation too.

“I lived in the US for several years and became an American football fan. Home games and away games are big events there, because the crowd becomes your twelfth man. So what visiting teams used to do when they practised was blast the crowd noise on the speakers, just to get used it. The noise can be deafening in matches,” he added.