BCCI to incur a loss of whooping Rs 4000 cr if IPL is cancelled

New Delhi: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) treasurer Arun Dhumal on Tuesday said the board could suffer huge loss of about Rs 4000 crore if the Indian Premier League (IPL) is called off entirely this year.

Scheduled to start on March 29, the IPL season 13 has been suspended twice in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there have been various media reports suggesting BCCI is mulling alternative windows like August-September and October-November to stage the 2020's edition of the cash-rich tournament. 

''We'll be able to assess it once we know when we're going to start [the cricket]. As of now,every bilateral that we miss, we'll be losing money. And if we're not able to organise IPL then that'll lead to a big hit. Not having an IPL would end up with a revenue loss of about Rs 4000 crore,'' Dhumal said in a interview to Cricbuzz.

Dhumal signalled that bilateral series' will play a major role in helping different boards regain their plundered financial loses. He pointed out that bilateral series' will be important for the ICC as well because it's the combination of these boards which has formed it.

"Yes, easily that adds more money to any cricket board. That is why priority is everyone comes on board and finds out what is best. If individual cricket boards survive then only ICC survives, isn't it? It's not that ICC on its own can survive and feed all the cricket boards. 

If all of us are back to our feet, then only we'll be able to help each other. I think that'll be the endeavour of everyone associated with the game, that to revive world cricket it is very important that all the boards are in a healthy financial position," he said. BCCI treasurer said the board has several ideas to recover the losses and get cricket back on its feet once the pandemic eases but there's no clarity on which plan would work.

"We have many, many thoughts as of now. We need to discuss all of this with counterparts in ECB, CA and all other boards and then we'll work out a strategy," he said."We haven't mulled over this idea and this needs to be worked out with the broadcaster also, you have to certainly make compromises if we're going ahead with two teams. We need to think through this and see what best can be done," he added.

Talking about the impact of the lockdown on domestic cricket, Dhumal said BCCI would do everything to get the domestic season started as planned.''The domestic season was supposed to resume by July-August. Hopefully, that'll be set. In case it (the break) carries on for some time, that will also get impacted," he said.

''As of now, the priority is to set right the stadiums and infrastructure because everything is under lockdown... For every sportsman or a cricketer, one season is a big, big thing in his career. We would not want anybody to lose out on that,'' he concluded.(UNI)