Decision on Indian Premier League overseas venue likely today
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is keen to stage the lion's share of matches on home-and-away basis among the eight teams because franchises could suffer financial losses as high as 40 per cent if the event is staged overseas.
- NDTVSports
- Updated: March 10, 2014 12:04 AM IST
A decision on the overseas venue for this year's Indian Premier League is expected to be announced on Monday evening after BCCI bigwigs meet Union Home ministry officials. Under pressure from team officials, the BCCI is likely to host most of the matches in Indian venues. However, the final picture will only emerge on Monday. (Won't be able to provide security to IPL matches: Sushil Kumar Shinde)
Franchises could suffer financial losses as high as 40 per cent and hence BCCI is keen to stage the lion's share of matches on home-and-away basis among the eight teams. United Arab Emirates and Bangladesh are the frontrunners to host a shorter version of the IPL, while, the tournament could return to India as early as May first week.
Last Thursday, IPL chairman Ranjib Biswal (jn pic) insisted that since the T20 tournament is a domestic event, their main objective is to conduct majority of the matches in India. "With the elections dates finalised, we are working towards hosting bulk of the matches in India. Since it is the Indian Premier League we need to accommodate as many matches in the county. We discussed about foreign venues, but we can only finalise after a couple of days," Biswal told reporters after the IPL governing council meet in New Delhi.
The election commission on Wednesday announced the dates of the 16th Lok Sabha polls, which will be held on nine days from April 7 to May 12 in the highest number of phases so far. The counting of votes in all the 543 Lok Sabha constituencies involving an 81.4 crore voters will be done on May 16.
According to BCCI sources, the Twenty20 event - the window of which has been kept from April 9 to June 3 - will be shifted to India after the counting of votes.