Kolkata: Sourav Ganguly, the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has stood firm on the stand of conducting the IPL 2021 in India. He also said that nothing can be said about the return of the remaining IPL season as the cricket schedule is more or less packed.
He was talking to Indian Express in an interview. When asked about the safety of the bio-bubble, he said: "I don’t think so. The report we got is that there’s no breach of the bubble. How it happened is very difficult to say. How so many people are getting (infected) in the country is also very difficult to say."
When asked whether it would have been a better option had IP been arranged in one or two cities, Ganguly said, "As I said, when we decided all this, there was no (Covid spike) in India. So it’s very easy to say now, but when this tournament was organized, Covid numbers (in India) were nothing. We started with Mumbai and finished there without any case. And Mumbai was very high (number of active Covid cases) then."
This year's bio-bubble was not handled by UK-company Restrata. When asked Ganguly if a professional team was handling the situation, Ganguly said: "They are all professional hands. Professional hands around the world can’t control it (virus penetrating the bubble). When it was happening in England (the second wave of the pandemic), there were cases in the English Premier League. Manchester City, Arsenal players got infected. Matches got rescheduled. Because their season is six months long, they can do it. But our season is tight. Since we have to (release) players to their respective countries, rescheduling was very difficult."
He also informed that the Indian players in the IPL will have to individually vaccinate themselves on reaching their hometowns. Sourav Ganguly sounded defensive about organizing the IPL. He kept on giving the example of EPL, La Liga, and other football leagues. Ganguly said that it is too early to comment if the IPL will return any time soon.