IPL 2021: Ganguly admits ‘travelling’ could have led to bubble-breach– The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) feels that staging the IPL 2021 was not a mistake. In a recent interview former India skipper and BCCI President Sourav Ganguly explained the entire thought process behind the decision to organize the IPL 2021 in cluster caravan format with six venues as hosts. He also opened up about moving T20 World Cup out of India. At the same time, Ganguly and BCCI are clueless but felt travel might have caused the IPL 2021 bubble breach.
“I really don’t know what led to this situation inside the bio-security bubble. We will have to do a post-mortem and look into the reasons behind this. But travelling could have been an issue,” Sourav Ganguly told Telegraph India.
“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 organised, 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,” Indian Express quoted him as saying.
IPL 2021:Ganguly admits ‘travelling’ could have led to bubble-breach
Second Wave of COVID-19
Ganguly further stressed that the number of cases very in control during February as the England tour of India was successfully conducted.
“The (COVID-19 cases) in India in February, the number was not even close to this. We did the England tour successfully,” Indian Express quoted him as saying.
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It is notable that India was witnessing nearly 90,000 cases on a daily basis when the IPL 2021 began in India. During IPL last year, India reported nearly 80,000 cases per day. The number of coronavirus cases, induced by the second wave of COVID-19, saw a jump by 4 times.
IPL 2021:Ganguly admits ‘travelling’ could have led to bubble-breach
Foreign layers travel arrangements
The BCCI President also assured that a safe journey has been managed for foreign players, which was a big debate after IPL 2021 suspension.
“They will all be fine. They are all looked after and they will all reach home. The Australians will reach the Maldives tomorrow, finish their quarantine and then reach Australia safely. So I don’t see any issue,” he said.
When Ganguly was questioned about the UK-company, Restrata, which was given charge of IPL bubble in Dubai last year, he said, “They don’t have a big presence in India, that was the problem. So we went with others.”
He further stated that professional hands can’t control the virus penetrating the bubble.
After reports of Dubai as leading contender of T20 World Cup, Ganguly said “it’s too early” to comment.
“Let’s see what happens to the World T20. There’s still some time left and we don’t know how things will pan out a month later… Can’t comment right now. But let’s not assume things,” Sourav told Telegraph India.
The 48-year-old added that the WTC Final will go on as scheduled (June 18) and Indian players will undergo mandatory 7-day quarantine in England.
He signed off by saying that the players can now undergo vaccination as state governments have now approved vaccination of 18+.
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