In a bad news for Indian fans, The 12th edition of Indian Premier League is set to move outside of India for whole of the season. This will be third time when the tournament will not be held in India. The first two instances came in 2009 and 2014 which were shifted to South Africa and United Arab Emirates respectively due to general elections. Its worth mentioning that 2019 will again mark general elections in India.
Venue for IPL 2019?
Twenty20Wiki has reported that South Africa is likely to host the biggest T20 league of the world.
“It could be a difficult situation for players and franchise owners if they’d be asked to play under different conditions within just 2-3 days, say from India to UAE or South Africa. Making adjustment with conditions in such scenario would be tough task for everyone. Hence we are working to shift entire IPL 2019 season to another country and South Africa is the front runner due to their prior 2009 experience.”
“There are more number of stadiums in South Africa than UAE and hosting all 60 matches couldn’t be possible for 2-3 venues. This makes Africa front runner to host the next season. Also we’re planing to kick of IPL 2019 in the mid of March so that overseas players can also get to play maximum games. PSL also be hosted in UAE. So there would be less time for grounds men to complete preparations,” the source added.
The popularity of Indian cricket team in UAE during the Asia Cup 2018 is also keeping the Central Asian country in hunt to host the next IPL season.
