IPL 2023: Anticipation Builds As BCCI Delays IPL Schedule Announcement — Here Are A Few Reasons
IPL 2023 Schedule: The lucrative league is set to return to its traditional home and away format this year.
There is a lot of anticipation among the fans for the forthcoming season of the Indian Premier League (IPL). With cricket understood to be a thing like religion in India, the tournament has become one of the reasons to look forward to the summer and it's no different this year. However, everyone is keen to know the IPL 2023 schedule and fixtures of their favourite team, which is set to return to its traditional home and away format after the COVID-19 impacted break, there has not yet been an official announcement on the same by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
It is still not clear when will IPL 2023 schedule be announced, one of the possible reasons behind why BCCI has not yet announced the schedule for the tournament is a brand new event in their calendar — Women's Premier League (WPL). Notably, this is the first time ever, BCCI is all set to host a full-fledged tournament like IPL for women cricketers. Even though there have been a few editions of the Women's T20 Challenge in the past, those were three-team competitions with only 4 matches in total including the final.
Now with the inaugural WPL schedule announced, in all likelihood IPL 2023 will start only after the WPL Final which is scheduled on March 26.
🗓️ Mark Your Calendars
— Women's Premier League (WPL) (@wplt20) February 14, 2023
Get Ready to support your favourite teams 👏 👏
The schedule for the inaugural edition of Women's Premier League is here 🔽 #WPL pic.twitter.com/O1HHvRUh0k
India's Chance To Qualify For World Test Championship Final
Another possible explanation behind the no official word from BCCI on IPL 2023 schedule is India's qualification chances for the World Test Championship (WTC) 2021-23 final. With India's chances of securing a place in this summit clash depending upon the result of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, there is a possibility that BCCI might wait for at least the first two Test matches to end before taking a final call.
This is because if India were to qualify for the WTC 2021-23 final, which will happen if India win the current Test series against Australia either 4-0, 3-0, 3-1, 2-0, 2-1, 1-0 or 2-2 draw, then the Board would ideally want their Test-playing members to reach England early.
The ICC has confirmed that the WTC final will be played from June 7 at the Oval, leaving BCCI a window from March 27 to the end of May to conduct IPL 2023, which is a 65-day window.
Earlier reports had emerged suggesting that the initial idea was to have the IPL on a 74-day window but now the IPL could be wrapped up in less than 60 days.
With April 1 being a Saturday, it could be a plausible perfect start to the blockbuster league and a tentative date for the final being May 28, which again falls on a Sunday, leaving 8 days in between the IPL 2023 final and WTC final.
For now, the entire cricketing community awaits the IPL 2023 schedule announcement.
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