IPL 7 to be held from April 16; first half goes to UAE

NEW DELHI: Indian cricket will return to Sharjah after a gap of 13 years with the cricket board deciding to host a quarter of the Indian Premier League in the UAE to beat security concerns at home during the Lok Sabha polls.

The first 16 matches of the two-month 60-match long tournament will be played in three venues of UAE - Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi - from April 16 to April 30, the IPL organisers said in a statement.

The T20 cricket tournament, played among eight city-based teams owned by the likes of Mukesh Ambani, Vijay Mallya and Shah Rukh Khan, is expected to head back home after a part of the elections get over by the end of April. But as that decision is still subject to a clearance from the union home ministry, the organisers have decided to keep Bangladesh as the alternate venue for matches that are to be played between May 1 and May 12, IPL chairman Ranjib Biswal said.




The last time the Indian board had sent its cricketers and teams to Sharjah - a popular cricket venue in the 1980s and 1990s, which became infamous for links with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and allegations of match fixing - was in October 2000, when India lost to Sri Lanka by a mammoth 245 runs. After the match-fixing allegations broke out, the Indian government banned the national cricket team from playing in Sharjah. India has not played a single match at the venue after that, though it played matches in Abu Dhabi in 2006.

Biswal said he is not aware of any ban. He said that the home ministry is yet to take a decision on BCCI's request to allow the IPL to be held in India from the first week of May by then seven of the nine phases of elections will be over.

"We are still hopeful that the home ministry will allow us to bring back IPL to India early so that over 70% of the matches are held here," he said.

The final phase of the IPL, which will include the all crucial playoffs and the final, when viewership is at its highest, will be played in the country. "From Tuesday 13th May (once polling has concluded in all states), the remaining league matches plus the playoffs will be played in India. There will be no matches scheduled on the counting day of Friday, May 16," the organisers said in the statement.

A senior BCCI official said the board will also work out the details of a compensation package for IPL teams.

If more than half of the IPL matches are moved to an overseas location, it would mean a loss of 40-50% in revenues for IPL teams as a considerable chunk of their revenues come from ticket sales on their home grounds. Even sponsorship and merchandising opportunities will get impacted due to the move.

Moving half of the tournament outside will also impact government revenues . According to an economic impact survey conducted by the US-based marketing research and analysis firm Sports Economics for the Delhi Daredevils, the six games Delhi played on its home ground in 2013 generated around 96 crore for the Delhi government in direct and indirect taxes. This year, if the tournament happens in India, each team will play seven matches at their home grounds. If half of the matches go out, the eight states could lose revenues of up to 50 crore each.