Mumbai: The BCCI president Sourav Ganguly has expressed that the Board will do everything it can to ensure that the series against England between January and March next year is held in India including the domestic season.
He also suggested that Mumbai will be a good destination to hold the home series against England and domestic cricket in a bio-secure surrounding due to the COVID-19 threat. It will be a good venue for this season since it has three stadiums. The Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) has shown its eagerness to play ball to the parent body.
“The MCA will facilitate any initiative that the BCCI would take with respect to the creation of a bio-bubble in Mumbai. We will work in tandem with state authorities to mitigate the risks involved to ensure complete safety of all concerned stakeholders of the game,” MCA president Vijay Patil said.
“The final decision, of course, will ultimately depend on central and state government direction in this regard,” Patil further added. “Priority is to make the England series happen in India. We will try to make this happen on Indian grounds,” Ganguly said in Kolkata on Monday (September 28).
The BCCI had recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Emirates Cricket Board for greater cooperation in conducting matches there. “We also have the same facility in Mumbai – CCI (Brabourne), Wankhede and DY Patil (stadiums). We also have Eden Gardens (in Kolkata),” Ganguly said.
“We have to create a bubble. We want to hold our cricket in India, that’s where the game is, that’s where the heart is. But we are monitoring the COVID situation. Everything is fluid. It’s been hard for the last six months to keep everything in order. You want your cricket to happen. You want lives to get back to normal, there are players involved. But you also want to have a close look at the COVID situation,” Dada further stated.
In this was the normal time, the domestic season would have already started in India. “We are monitoring it,” Ganguly said. “We want to have our domestic season. We have all the combinations, situations ready in our minds. We will try and make it happen as much as we can.”
