The 12th edition of Indian Premier League (IPL) is likely to be played outside India due to the general elections in the country. South Africa hosted the event when the IPL was organised outside India in 2009 and the country is keen to host the T20 tournament in 2019 too.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is pondering over the alternative venue for a significant period of time. BCCI is waiting for the dates of the elections to be announced before taking a final decision.
Meanwhile, Cricket South Africa has made their interest in hosting the tournament next year clear.
“If they were to propose to move it to SA‚ the easy answer to give now is yes. We would be interested in hosting the IPL‚" the Chief Executive of CSA, Thabang Moroe was quoted as saying by businesslive.co.za.
“It remains speculation for now until such time that the government of India announces the date for elections. But there is an appetite from them to move it to either SA or Dubai,” Moroe said.
He said that CSA will have to work on the logistics if IPL is indeed shifted to the rainbow nation in 2019.
“There are issues of wear and tear as far as our wickets are concerned and [issues regarding] our competitions because we are going to host the U19 World Cup in the next two years. Should we continue with our domestic T20 Slam this year‚ the tournament will also add to the workload on the wickets … and those are all things we must take cognisance [of] before we make a decision,” CSA chief further said.
The 12th edition of the Indian Premier League will be held from March 29 to May 19 in 2019.
