IPL 2020: Challenges BCCI will need to tackle for staging IPL in UAE

The month of April is the month of cricket’s carnival, the Indian Premier League. This year the coronavirus pandemic played the spoilsport as the world’s most successful T20 tournament had to be postponed. With the T20 World Cup being cancelled, BCCI finally found a window to stage the IPL but hosting it was an issue. Playing the tournament in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has given rise to more pertinent questions. These are the challenges that BCCI will have to overcome:

Revenue-sharing and financial problems

With the IPL being played under the closed-door policy, there will be no revenue earned from gate money. This is likely to set back each franchise by 2.5 – 3.5 crores per IPL match which is somewhere around 20-25 crores for the full season. Also, the team owners will have to bear the high accommodation costs for their squads. According to an estimate, 60,000 room nights will be required in UAE for managing the IPL.

? IPL Dates Announced ?
Indian cricket carnival is happening! ?#IPL2020 pic.twitter.com/R2GdUVgBla

— 100MB (@100MasterBlastr) July 24, 2020

Shifting base from India to UAE

Taking the complete IPL squads along with the support staff from India to UAE will be a huge challenge that the BCCI will need to tackle. There will be many overseas players involved with each following their country’s own guidelines. Also, all of them will have to obey UAE’s rules on isolation and quarantine period. These issues will come at the forefront in cases of non-availability of players and replacing players due to medical reasons.

Bio-secure bubble

England and West Indies have played their Test series in a bio-secure bubble. The players stay at the hotel which is a part of the cricket stadium, thus reducing their chances of getting infected. The BCCI will need to come up with a similar policy to keep these many players together and safe. Even one lapse of any of the involved staff could harm the event fatally.