'Certainly a positive thing': Kevin Pietersen talks about IPL amidst COVID-19 crisis

Holding IPL 2021 amidst the COVID-19 crisis in India is still a raging debate. While some felt that the tournament should have been suspended earlier itself, whereas others thought of it as the only positive thing going on as citizens were placed under lockdown. 

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However, cases emerged in the bio-secure bubble during the tournament and the cash-rich league had to be suspended indefinitely. The decision was taken by the IPL Governing Council and BCCI. 

Kevin Pietersen, who was a commentator for IPL on Star Sports, felt that the T20 tournament was initially "a positive thing for India". 

"I definitely bought into the fact that continuing the tournament initially was a positive thing for India. The country is not in a good way but I felt that providing six hours of entertainment each day was certainly a positive thing," Pietersen wrote in his blog on Betway.

"We were doing a job for all of India, creating a show to give people some relief. I thought that the package the players were delivering was fantastic.

"Yes, the wickets were a little slow, certainly in Chennai, but the cricket was still very good.

"Don’t forget that the players and broadcasters are not blind to what was going on in India. There was an awful lot of empathy and desire to help in any way we could, which is why we were so keen to put on the show," he added.

"But once players tested positive then there was going to be an awful lot of pressure on the BCCI to postpone the tournament and I do believe that they had little choice," he signed off.