Mumbai: BCCI president Sourav Ganguly has said that the board have decided the much-awaited 2020-21 domestic season will tentatively start from January 1, 2021. Earlier, the domestic season has been postponed due to the uprising COVID-19 cases.
The decision came after Ganguly’s meeting with the apex council on Saturday (October 17), where board members discussed about the domestic season, it was decided that while a whole season would be difficult to take place, the BCCI would do everything in its ability to hold both men’s and women’s tournaments.
“We have had extensive discussion on domestic cricket and we have tentatively decided to start the competitions from January 1, 2021,” Ganguly told PTI. “We will certainly have the full-fledged Ranji Trophy red-ball tournament. It will probably not be possible to hold all the tournaments.”
However, amid all the indecisions, Ganguly guaranteed that age-group and women’s cricket tournaments would be held between March and April. He repeated that the board is planning broadly and be definite that matches are held.
“We also have elaborate plans for our age-group and women’s cricket. We will start with the Ranji Trophy and then we will also have the other tournaments between March and April,” he concluded.
Earlier, it was announced that the women’s team would travel to Sri Lanka after the Women’s T20 Challenge in the UAE. However, there is no official announcement done yet about the women’s team or whether it will go ahead as planned. The Sri Lankan government has asked a 14-day quarantine requirement.
With the BCCI focusing to begin the domestic season in January, the chances of hosting England at home look good. UAE remains a second option for BCCI if hosting England in India becomes hard due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking about that Ganguly said, “The England series is good three and a half to four months away. We still have time. We are monitoring the situation (COVID-19) which is pretty fluid and will take a call accordingly.”
