The International Cricket Council (ICC) announced on July 20 that the ICC T20 World Cup scheduled in Australia for October-November will be postponed to 2021. The announcement opened up a window for Board of Control for Cricket in India to conduct the world’s richest cricket tournament, the Indian Premier League.
IPL governing body chairman Brijesh Patel announced on July 21 that the tournament would be organised in the United Arab Emirates, provided the Indian government allowed it. While a response from the Indian government is still awaited, BCCI has initiated discussions regarding the hosting of the tournament.

While BCCI head Sourav Ganguly had previously hoped to conduct the tournament in India, however, the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the country has forced BCCI to seek an alternative.

Luckily, the UAE cricket board has already made an offer to host the tournament according to a Reuters report.

“They [Emirates Cricket Board] made an offer to host it, but we require government permission to stage it in UAE… We’ll discuss the issue in the next governing council meeting in 7-10 days” said Brijesh Patel in an interview with Reuters.

IPL which was supposed to be scheduled in April 2020, had to be postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, however, now if  approved by the government it will be conducted in UAE without spectators.

Patel has also said the IPL governing council is now planning to have a full-fledged tournament with all 60 games being conducted in UAE.

A team owner recently told PTI that “Our players will need at least three to four weeks of training, if not more. We will finalise all our plans once the BCCI announces the dates. It looks like the IPL will be in the UAE and we are ready for that.”

With India’s tour of Australia scheduled in November, the committee will have to decide on the specific dates to conduct the tournament.