The Board of Control For Cricket in India (BCCI) boss Sourav Ganguly on Thursday revealed that the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 schedule will be released on Friday. The first game of the cash-rich season is scheduled to take place between Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Mumbai Indians (MI) -- last year's season finalists, on September 19.
BCCI was supposed to release the complete fixtures last week on September 4 but it was postponed after two players and 12 staff members of Chennai Super Kings tested positive for the dreaded Coronavirus (Covid-19).
“We understand schedules are delayed. It is almost on the verge of getting final and should be released by Friday”, Ganguly told ABP News.
The 56-day tournament will be played across three venues Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah. The 13th edition of the cash-rich tournament was initially supposed to take place from March 29 but got postponed for indefinite period due to spike in the number of Covid-19 cases in India.
The IPL governing council and the BCCI finally got the opportunity to use the September-November window for conducting IPL 2020 outside India in United Arab Emirates (UAE), after the postponement of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup which was scheduled to take place in Australia.
For now, the first game of the tournament is supposed to be played between Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians but reports suggest that BCCI might replace CSK with another team for the opening match, given the recent developments in the Dhoni-led camp.