Former Australia and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) batsman Matthew Hayden has suggested that the Indian Premier League be played without any overseas cricketer in 2020.
The IPL 2020, which was scheduled to be played from March 29 was earlier postponed to April 15 before it was suspended due to the crisis caused by the novel coronavirus till further notice.
“Certainly the IPL could take exist without foreign players. I think it would be a product that is being compromised naturally because foreign players do add a lot to the IPL. They raise the level of awareness and excitement among fans. Getting nations together has infact made IPL the fun that it has been,” Hayden said as quoted by IANS.
“But in conditions like this, it could go on without foreign players and it should go on if all health issues have been uncompromised and the game can proceed in clean stadiums,” the former opener added.
However, the Board of Control for Cricket in India treasurer Arun Dhumal earlier informed that the board had not yet made any plans about the 13th edition of the IPL without any foreigners.
“We haven’t planned anything as of now. We can’t think of IPL getting back yet. Players coming in from other countries, whether they’ll be willing to come here and be quarantined for two weeks and play IPL is not known,” Dhumal said as quoted by Australian daily Sydney Herald.
“How can we think of IPL? This is all media speculation. There is nothing as of now. Once things get clear, then only will we be able to go back to the drawing board and think about re-starting cricket,” he added.
Meanwhile, there have been various media reports suggesting BCCI is mulling alternative windows like August-September and October-November to stage the 2020’s edition of the cash-rich tournament. But all of the speculations lacked an official backing as the fate of IPL continues to hang in doubt.
But the BCCI treasurer quashed all the “media speculations” and said that the board would only think about the IPL after the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic gets over.