Former England skipper Nasser Hussain slams BCCI for staging IPL in India amid COVID-19

Former England captain Nasser Hussain has said that the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) had to be called off given the dire situation in India, where lakhs of people are contracting the COVID-19 virus each day. While acknowledging the importance of a cricket tournament amidst a viral pandemic and the distraction it can provide at the end of the day, Nasser said that the IPL 2021 should never have been held in India. In an opinion piece for Daily Mail, Nasser said that the BCCI made a mistake by staging the IPL in India when the COVID-19 situation was just becoming worse. 

Nasser said that BCCI conducted a successful IPL last year in UAE, which should have been the norm for this year too. However, the former England skipper highlighted that nobody could have predicted the second wave to be so deadly and like everyone else BCCI may have thought that the country was already through the worst of the pandemic. Nasser said he understands where the decision to stage the IPL in India may have stemmed from, adding "there was no other option than to call-off the tournament". 

Nasser further suggested that the BCCI could conduct the remainder of the season in England this year after the completion of international and domestic fixtures. Nasser said that the BCCI could also go back to the UAE before the ICC T20 World Cup and re-stage the tournament as they did in 2020. Nasser said that it is not going to be easy to resume the IPL later this year, given loads of international matches that are scheduled to be held during the time. 

COVID-19 in India

India is currently battling the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has raged havoc across the country for the past couple of weeks. India has been registering more than 3 lakh fresh COVID-19 cases for the past 10 days. The country recorded more than 3,82,000 new infections in the last 24 hours and as many as 3,700 people died during the same period. The cumulative total from the start of the pandemic now stands at 20 million cases and over 2,22,000 deaths across India, which is only second to the United States. 

(Image Credit: ECB/Twitter/IPL)