Coronavirus pandemic: BCCI looking to conduct IPL 2020 in July-September window

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is looking to schedule the highly anticipated Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 in July and September. While IPL 2020 was earlier set to kickstart from March 29, the novel coronavirus pandemic has left the sporting calendar in tatters, forcing the authorities to suspend the cash-rich tournament until April 15.

There have been talks of a truncated IPL 2020 with a shortened playing window and it looked like the authorities had a proper 'Plan B' on cards. However, as per a leading daily, as things have been developing, it seems the Indian cricket board is looking for a complete tournament consisting as many as 60 matches, if not now then on a later window, if not in India then overseas, if not with the complete pool of foreign players then some.

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The Future Tours Programme (FTP), which is cricket's annual calendar, for the year 2020 has not many significant tournaments or bilateral series between July and September barring the Asia Cup T20, scheduled to be played in September. Pakistan versus England, and Ireland versus England, in the limited-overs circuit, are two bilateral series falling in the July-September bracket.

However, the likes of Australia, West Indies, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, don't have a packed window barring the last three's participation in the Asia Cup T20.

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Going by Team India's calendar, the Virat Kohli-led outfit is scheduled to play just three ODIs and as many T20Is in Sri Lanka in June/July.

It will be interesting to see what decision BCCI takes given how the situation surrounding the novel coronavirus pans out in the coming weeks.