However, the importance of the biggest professional T20 tournament of the world, Indian Premiere League, can only be compared to the inevitability of the elections in the country—one injects the much-needed business into the economy and the other new governments—both being considered desperate, particularly under the present circumstances. The assembly elections in five states should have ideally ended on 6th April 2021, but for West Bengal where desperate reasons needed desperately-long phases of polling that will continue till 29thof April. Further, the world of cricket in entirety, not just the organizers BCCI, has set their eyes on this competition which would be the last major rehearsal for the upcoming ICC World Cup T20 in October-November in India this year. Almost all of the participating nations have sent in their top players for that precious practice. It is also for this reason only that the BCCI could not afford to postpone the tournament, even by a few months.
The eight franchisees—Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Mumbai Indians (MI), Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), Delhi Capitals (DC), Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), Rajasthan Royals (RR) and Punjab Kings (PK, changed from the earlier Kings XI Punjab). As we mentioned earlier, the matches will be played across six venues with no ‘home team’ tag assigned to any of the teams. The first match of the 14th version of the IPL is set to kick off tonight, the 9th of April 2021, at 7.30 pm in Chennai between defending champions and Rohit Sharma-led MI and India-captain Virat Kohli-led RCB, whereas the second match will take place in Mumbai tomorrow, the 10th of April 2021, between MS Dhoni-led CSK and DC, led by Rishabh Pant in the absence of Shreyas Iyer due to injury, at the same time. On two-match days the first match will start at 3.30 pm, and all the matches are to be played from 9thApril to 30th May. The pre-2020 title sponsor, Vivo, has been brought back too.
Well, politics and cricket go hand in hand in defining India, and irrespective of the intensity with which we hope for at least a politics-free COVID-19 fight the play (of politics) never left us alone, even during the pandemic as we have seen since May 2020. Now, politics is not going to ebb till the 2ndof May when results of the assembly elections would be announced while the other play (cricket) would continue unabated till May 30 2021. However, in favour of the latter one can say that the worried public, who are basically blamed for their COVID inappropriate behaviour as being the main cause of the surge, will have at least time-pass avenues every evening thanks to the IPL charge.
