The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had to take action on an almost immediate basis and suspend the 18th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2025) for a week, in view of the rising tensions between India and Pakistan. With the dust still being thrown in the air, the cricket board is hopeful that the league will resume after a week and has also asked all concerned to keep themselves ready.
Matters took a complicated turn with an IPL match between Punjab Kings and Delhi Capitals getting called off in Dharamsala following air raid alerts in the vicinity of Jammu and Pathankot. Following the abandonment of the match, players and staff were immediately taken to New Delhi via the train by the Railways ministry.
Also, on Friday, an emergency meeting was convened by BCCI to decide how the tournament was to proceed. BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia said that they had decided to suspend the remaining of TATA IPL 2025 for a week and would give updates on rescheduling after the evaluation of the situation along with the concerned authorities.
The reports say that all IPL teams agreed that sending their overseas players back home is the safest thing to do during these uncertain times; nevertheless, the BCCI continues to plead with all concerned to be ready to resume in a week’s time.
Another thing that’s interesting is that they will replay the abandoned PBKS-DC match once the league starts again. Now, the BCCI has to consider a tight timeline to finish the tournament in two weeks. It seems that they are thinking of moving matches to southern cities such as Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, or Visakhapatnam, and even Kolkata to an extent, which are farther from the LoC to facilitate an easy return for foreign players.
