Cricket New Normal: IPL Extravaganza To Hit The Screens From 19th September!

By -

The 13th version of the Twenty20 cricket extravaganza, the Indian Premier League (IPL 2020), is set to unfold from 19th September 2020 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The 53-day long tournament would see around 70 matches including practice matches during the period; the afternoon matches would start at 3.30 pm IST and evening matches at 7.30 pm IST. The matches are to be played in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. Eight teams or franchises will take part in the tournament: Mumbai Indians, Chennai Super Kings, Delhi Capitals, Kings XI Punjab, Kolkata Knight Riders, Sunrisers Hyderabad, Rajasthan Royals and Royal Challengers Bangalore.  The IPL Governing Council under the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has recently announced Dream11, an Indian company based in Mumbai, as the title sponsor of the IPL 2020 thanks to the exit of the erstwhile title sponsor Vivo, a Chinese concern. As per news reports available it has almost been decided not to have real spectators for the mega event, because officials of both the countries have found it too risky to have crowds inside the stadiums in view of the raging COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, as is known from reports, there would instead be huge LED screens in the stadiums that can connect the fans from various places where they can watch the live action and take part in the proceedings. Apart from those screens the matches would hit the small television screens across the globe as per arrangements of live telecast by the BCCI with Star Sports.

The IPL 2020 teams had started arriving at different venues in UAE from the 20th of August 2020 thanks to the strict COVID-19 norms and new normal cricket rules. Members of the teams arriving in Dubai were isolated at their hotel rooms for 7 days during which they were required to undergo three COVID tests, and only after being proven negative in the final test would they be allowed to go for the practice sessions. On the other hand, teams arriving in Abu Dhabi were being quarantined in hotels for 14 days as per the COVID protocol applicable there which reportedly upset a few members of the teams. This brings us to the issue of different protocols followed in different venues.

Protocols followed in Abu Dhabi are stricter due to the Coronavirus situation, and there are travel restrictions too between Abu Dhabi and Dubai or Sharjah. For example, players traveling form Dubai or Sharjah to Abu Dhabi would be required to undergo quick COVID tests at the internal border and only after being proved negative would they be allowed to enter the city. Cricket administrators have found this particular restriction not at all compatible with the demanding situation on match days. And, because of this vexing issue the BCCI has not been able so far to fix and announce the match schedule. As per reports the Board or the IPL Governing Council has been mulling dividing the tournament into two legs: most of the matches in the first leg being played in Dubai and Sharjah where restrictions are relaxed a bit, and the remaining matches in Abu Dhabi in the second leg.

Although the match schedule has not yet been announced in the official IPL website, an inadvertent tweet by Rohit Sharma, captain of the defending Champions Mumbai Indians, where he paid rich tributes to MS Dhoni, captain of Chennai Super Kings and who retired from international cricket recently, before facing him in the first match revealed that the first match of the tournament could be played between Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings, but no clue as yet to the venue.

Cricket fans and revelers in India are waiting eagerly for the new normal IPL 2020 unfold in their homes in all grandeur and glitz from the 19th of September 2020 to November 10 when the ultimate final is to be played. Since the tournament had been taken out of India, for the second time in IPL history, this would mean no traveling to the UAE for Indian fans. Meanwhile, Kings XI Punjab skipper Ravichandran Ashwin had left his team and joined Delhi Capitals, and Chris Gayle, after undergoing two COVID-19 tests and proven negative, had arrived in Dubai to join his team Kings XI Punjab. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Bura Mat Suno...Bura Mat Dekho..."!

By -
Image
Long back Mahatma Gandhi advised us ‘Do not listen to bad, do not see bad and do not speak bad’ ( "Bura Mat Suno..Bura Mat Dekho...Bura Mat Kaho" !). Now in modern hyper competitive times we are helpless about the first two don’ts. And persistent exposure to the first two makes us lose the third too! We cannot help but listen to or watch an endless stream of ‘bad’—all around us from home to the streets, in the newspapers and news channels, in the television serials and in the movies and at every act we have to do like walking praying jogging or driving—everyday and every step of our existence. Such continuous barrage of ‘bad’ is fast making us speak and utter a lot of ‘bad’ too. We are becoming doubtful and suspicious of everything around us and we are learning to blurt it out freely and openly. The main ‘bad’ drive comes from politics. We are hounded constantly by all sorts of stories being hammered into us forcing us to form our opinions or go on changing t
Read more

Darbari Politics: Do Not Go Overboard, Mr. Kejriwal!

By -
Image
Emperors or Kings of ancient and medieval India used to have their ‘ darbar ’ or ‘courts’ to hear and address the subjects’ problems. These autocratic monarchs had full authority to decide action or punishment on the spot and nobody dared question the verdicts. However, modern Indian democracy is much more different, and Arvind Kejriwal’s brand of ‘common man rule’ is the extreme contrast with everybody having the right to ask, question or contest. Besides, Indian mob behavior is only too predictably well known. In an almost unmanageably overpopulated country plagued by unemployment and inflation the huge crowds at the employment exchanges, freebie events and public transport stations are only to be seen to be believed. And then the ‘me first’ mentality has been a constant witness to innumerable stampedes at religious places, fatal road accidents and huge traffic snarls. Having a Chief Minister within a touching distance you can lucidly imagine how desperately the crowd would b
Read more

Indian Politics: More Cartoons Out Of The Cupboard!

By -
Image
The cartoon was first published in 1949. It was aesthetically done and genuinely humorous. Therefore, it was included in Indian textbooks meant for eleventh standard school students in 2006 to make education informative as well as enjoyable. After 63 years from first publication and 6 years from inclusion in textbooks the ‘issue’ of the cartoon rocked and disrupted the Indian Parliament on May 11, 2012. The reason or motivation seemed to be obvious—to embarrass the tottering ruling coalition further in light of impending General Elections of 2014. The cartoon involved two all-time greats in Indian history. Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar , popularly known as Babasaheb , donned the role of a real father of the Indian Constitution and fought tirelessly for the Dalits or the Untouchables or the oppressed all his life. Belonging to a backward caste of Maharashtra he struggled at every stage of his life to rise to eminence as a sociopolitical reformer, scholar-philosopher, writer-
Read more

Mumbai: Rainless Monsoon Continues…!

By -
Image
This year the South West Monsoon seemed to be obsessively focused on covering the whole   of India as fast as possible, and in in fact, after arriving dot on time and reaching the state of Maharashtra on 11 th June, 2020 the monsoon started its journey covering region after region and finally arriving in North India 12 days earlier—thus successfully covering the full country in record time. Now, the point is about doing what it’s supposed to do, that is to say, providing the much-needed rains for the cultivation season all around. It had rained in the first days in Maharashtra in good measure helping the farming community, but later it relaxed and lapsed into a mode of fits and starts. As we pointed out in our last piece the monsoon has been kind enough to provide just one good shower to Mumbai and adjacent areas so far . The Met department noted this and made a forecast that the relaxed monsoon would be active again from 28 th of June. However, this has not happened so far cau
Read more

A Lockdown Remix Experience In Peoples’ Land Kolkata!

By -
Image
If we can assume that people are already familiarized with the concept of lockdown as it has been more than a year since the national lockdown was imposed in India in March 2020, on the basis of this assumption we can go on to opine that the present version of the lockdown in Kolkata and the state of West Bengal has been a remix. Of course, the local media here has been terming this as only a ‘near-lockdown’, and we also know the kind of ‘mixed’ approaches adopted by various states of India to lockdown, but the experience here is unique and not related to most of the other states. We have decided to call it a remix, because under this process the old is often presented in a new getup to attract and excite the common people, and the state lockdown here has been a genuine remix with continuous tweaking to make it more and more user-friendly for the larger interests of the common people of West Bengal, particularly the state capital of Kolkata.   Yes, peoples’ interests. Nothing moves
Read more

Kamalananda Bhattacharyya: Life and Works. And His Beautiful Songs!

By -
Image
Respectful tributes to my grandfather whom I never met in this life, but his music kept him alive in me all my life. January 4, 1951. Assam lost a great poet, composer-lyricist, playwright, actor and freedom fighter Bauli Kavi Kamalananda Bhattacharyya. On his 61 st death anniversary he is remembered fondly by Assam’s intelligentsia, artistes and music lovers. Born in 1894 at Nagaon, Kamalananda Bhattacharyya did not have an easy life. Brought up in a musical ambience he lost his father at a tender age of 15 and being the eldest son the full burden of seven brothers and family fell on him. Fighting against odds he went to Cotton College at Guwahati and passed the pre-university course. But he had to come back home before pursuing higher studies. Again he tried for graduation and went to Calcutta, but could not complete and had to join a secondary school as a teacher back home to meet the growing domestic needs. But even that was not for long. Sensitive and a patriot at heart,
Read more

Cricket: Another Thriller! This Time West Indies Win!

By -
Image
The third one day cricket match between India and West Indies played at Ahmedabad was another edge-of –the-seat affair with fortunes fluctuating both ways. But finally today the Ravi Rampaul boost galvanized his team to a thrilling win by 16 runs. West Indies could not win even after Rampaul’s world record making effort for the last wicket in the second one-day international at Visakhapatnam. Today Rampaul took the vital wickets of skipper Sehwag and top order pillar Gambhir for ducks in his very first two balls of the match. At a crucial juncture again he got rid of another mainstay batsman Suresh Raina and finished off the match with the wicket of Mithun who replaced Varun Aaron for this match. But the win was not a cakewalk till the last four overs. India at 105 for 6 the match seemed to be over. But the tremendously consistent Rohit Sharma completed his third half century of the series and evolved yet another partnership of 91 runs with Ashwin who was confident after his first
Read more

Apolitical Anna Hazare Vs Political Arvind Kejriwal, And The Fight Against Corruption!

By -
Image
Anna Hazare, the crusader against corruption, first became a phenomenon, then got into frequent spells of silence and confusion, had a few flop shows over the period of more than a year and finally called it a day dissolving his famous Team Anna. His story has been more of a dilemma than success or failure. In August, 2012 Anna Hazare declared the decision to go political . The declaration was made from the stage shared by his team members who were the ones on fasting that time. The most prominent among them was Arvind Kejriwal who later said that the decision was taken after a lot of brainstorming and with the full permission of Anna Hazare. Anna also announced that there was nothing wrong in going in for a political alternative with a totally unresponsive government to deal with. A few days later the anti-corruption guru back in his native place in the state of Maharashtra officially dissolved Team Anna. He became more active now writing in his blog and after a gap of
Read more

Humor Or Not: Exams, Students And Questions!

By -
Image
In a school certificate examination in a certain language in a certain place in Maharashtra something very unusual happened. The exam hall was filled with bright and expectant students waiting in suspense for the question papers to be distributed. When the suspense ended and they had their papers in hand they hardly expected what they encountered. Thee was a question that left them all shell shocked. Some of them got emotional, some of them broke down and some of them protested vehemently. Even most of the teachers on duty became very angry and supported the students. The exam schedule got disturbed and absolute confusion prevailed. Finally the authorities canceled the question papers on that particular subject and gave assurances for rescheduling. The authorities also promised to take stern action against the setters of that question paper. The question was ‘how would you write a letter to your younger brother on your father’s sudden death’. They came prepared for the
Read more

The Horrid Truth About A Baby Girl!

By -
Image
A two-year old baby girl was admitted in a Delhi hospital on January 18, 2012. She was bruised and battered. She had serious head injuries and whole of her tiny body bore marks of torture and abuse. She had been fighting for life since then and as per the latest reports there were a few signs of recovery. The poor child had already suffered two cardiac arrests. Her name is Falak . Her supposed mother, a minor of 14 years, brought the baby to the hospital herself and was detained by the police for interrogation. Later, she was handed over to the welfare department. Her name is Mahi . The teenager ‘mother’ had also a horrid tale to tell. She reportedly confessed to the authorities that she herself abused the baby out of sheer frustration, but the head injury was caused by an accidental fall either from her bed or in the bathroom. Why she was so frustrated that made her abuse her ‘own’ baby? Mahi’s tale went on. She was living with her father who physically tortured her on
Read more