BCCI to conduct meeting with the IPL team owners on January 22nd

The Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) is planning to meet the owners of the IPL teams on Saturday afternoon. The meeting is supposed to deliberate the potential venues for the tournament to happen. Even though the date of the meeting has been announced, the apex cricketing board is still to confirm the date of the auction.

Several franchises have quoted, “It was supposed to be tomorrow (January 22) but we have not received confirmation as yet.” However, IPL chairman, Brijesh Patel has confirmed to Cricbuzz that the meeting will indeed be taking place on Saturday.

The first and foremost point that will be deliberated in the conclave will be about the venues of the tournament. There will also be further discussions about the planning and the status of the auction. Reports suggest that South Africa and Sri Lanka are being kept as back-up options. With all said and done, Pune and Mumbai are the fore-runners of convening the maximum number of matches.

Needless to say, the fate of the venue will be decided by the situation of the Covid pandemic. Despite a recent decline of the curve, it is the operational wing of IPL that will decide the fate of the tournament and the venues. However, reports suggest that the tournament will most likely be held in India.

The solitary consideration that has been doing the rounds is that most of the travel can be averted with the tournament being held in Mumbai. However, it will create problems for three IPL teams that are from the south namely, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Chennai Super Kings, and Sunrisers Hyderabad.

The meeting will also formally introduce the official owners of the two new franchises. Sanjiv Goenka will once again be coming to the fold as he has bought the Lucknow team and CVC Captial will be getting a formal shout out as they join the league of elites with the Ahmedabad team.