The Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) is planning to hold this year’s Indian Premier League across four to six cities. But this has raised concerns among franchisees from States like Punjab and Telangana as they want their home cities to also host their games.

According to BCCI’s draft plans, this year’s IPLis expected to be held in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, and Delhi. This is being done to avoid too much travel as Covid-19 infections continue to show a surge.

Impact on revenue

But this could have revenue implications for teams from other cities. Typically, IPL has a round-robbin league wherein the number of games played at a team’s host city is equal to as many as they play in other locations.

Since BCCI is yet to make its plans official, franchisees who are unhappy with the plan spoke on conditions of anonymity that the Board should either conduct the matches across all locations like before or in one or two locations like it did in 2020. “If the pandemic is the concern then why hold the matches across six locations. It can be limited to just one or two,” said a franchisee executive.

Telangana’s Minister for Industry and Information Technology, KT Rama Rao, on Sunday appealed to BCCI and IPL office-bearers to include Hyderabad as one of the venues for the upcoming IPL season. “Open appeal to @BCCI and @IPL office bearers to include Hyderabad as one of the venues for upcoming IPL season. Our effective COVID containment measures are reflected in our low number of cases among all metro cities in India & we assure you of all support from the Govt,” the minister tweeted.

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