With IPL and Lok Sabha Elections being held the same year in India, the security forces in the country face a huge challenge of holding them together. In the past, one has seen the league move out twice out of country, in 2009 and 2014, due to the General Elections. But in 2019, despite the chunav, the complete IPL was played in India.
IPL chairman Arun Dhumal was quite confident of holding the 17th edition of the tournament fully in India in a home and away format, a week ago. But the stance may have changed now. As per a report in Times of India, a group of BCCI officials are in UAE to explore the possibility of IPL 2024’s second leg moving there. The Election Commission of India is set to announce the date of the elections on Saturday at 3 pm and BCCI will take the final decision on whether to move the league out of country or not.
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Dhumal had told Sportstar that BCCI is doing its best to keep IPL in India but if it indeed moves out, then the challenge will be to keep the league going in home and away formats.
How many days to go for #TATAIPL 2024 to begin? _
The Captain of the defending champions is geared up for the season _ pic.twitter.com/laduRuK9nd
— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) March 15, 2024
Meanwhile there are reports in media that all ten franchises have collected passports of the players. These reports gave fuel to the speculations of IPL’s second phase moving to UAE. As mentioned before, a part of IPL 2014 was held in UAE due to the elections.
Why BCCI won’t want to fly to UAE for IPL 2024?
Organising IPL in India itself is a huge task. The preparations begin months before as infrastucture development begins, logisitical planning is done. Stakeholders like fans, broadcasters, sponsors are informed in advance about the the venues for travel, tickets, stadium tickets among other things. When the tournament venue changes at the last minute, everything has to be from the scratch and within lesser period of time. It is a arduous task that takes most of the time.
Having said that, BCCI must have been ready for any scenario knowing that LS elections would clash with the dates of IPL. Hence, they released the schedule for just the first two weeks of IPL with the T20 league starting on March 22 in Chennai with a game between defending champions Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Royal Challengers Bangalore. The two-week schedule runs from March 22 to April 7. The elections are likely to take place in the mid or end of April.
