Few days after clouds of uncertainty overlapped the organization of the second edition of the India Premier League owing to security reasons, as its dates were coinciding with the general elections, cheers for cricket fans appeared on Friday with the announcement of T20 League Chairman Lalit Modi that IPL will be held in the country with few modifications in the schedule.
We are in touch with all state governments and a revised schedule of the tournament will be released soon, Modi said, adding that no match will be played in a city on the day of polling.
“BCCI officials met with the IPL today. We decided to come out soon with a revised schedule. We want to assure our sponsors, teams and fans that the IPL is on and there's no question of shifting it to other countries,” Modi told reporter.
“Security is not a concern for cricket in India. We are thankful and grateful to Home Minister P Chidambaram for his clarification that security would be provided to the IPL,” he said.
The opening game will now be played in Mumbai as against Jaipur where it was to be held, Modi said, adding that he was looking for alternate venues to allocate IPL matches besides the fixed eight cities.
Meanwhile, Chidambaram assured the IPL organizers that adequate security would be provided to the players during the tournament. He said that he must know whether he had enough paramilitary forces to provide security to the IPL.
Chidambaram, who did not want the IPL to be moved out of the country, said at a press conference: “I want cricket to be played in India. Nobody needs to worry about safety while playing in India.”
He said that cricket in India was completely safe but as the IPL and election schedules were overlapping, rescheduling of the events was unavoidable.
Doubts over the organisation of IPL tournament were raised after the dastardly terror strike on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore and the general elections in India due in April-May which coincided with the IPL, commencing from April 10.
Chidambaram had earlier raised doubt over the organisation of the tournament as the paramilitary forces would be involved in election duty. He had said that he would have needed to know whether he had enough paramilitary forces to provide security to the IPL.
The problem of overlapping of two events occurred because when the IPL announced the schedule, the elections dates were not declared. And when the EC announced the dates, naturally it did not take it into account, the schedule was overlapped completely.
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