Day after several players tested positive for COVID-19, a PIL has been filed in Bombay High Court seeking direction to Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to cancel or postpone IPL 2021 owing to the COVID-19 situation.
The petitioner in his plea has stated that the resources deployed for IPL players can be used for COVID-19 patients.
The Bombay High Court will hear the PIL on Thursday.
Demands for cancellation or postponement of the tournament were raised after several players tested positive.
A COVID-19 outbreak left the star-sprinkled IPL on tenterhooks as Kolkata Knight Riders' Varun Chakravarthy and Sandeep Warrier tested positive for the dreaded virus, forcing postponement of their game against Royal Challengers Bangalore, while cases also came to light in the Chennai Super Kings camp.
The match, which was to be held in Ahmedabad this evening, will be rescheduled some time later during the tournament, which will conclude on May 30.
Apart from this, Chennai Super Kings CEO Kasi Viswanathan, bowling coach L Balaji and a bus cleaner with the contingent tested positive on Sunday. A top BCCI official, after declaring all three cases to be "false positives", later clarified that Balaji along with the unnamed cleaner had come out positive even in the repeat test.
CSK, currently based in Delhi, suspended their training for the day and are scheduled to face Rajasthan Royals on May 5. The team had been hit by COVID cases even in the 2020 edition which was held in the UAE.
There was cause of concern in Delhi too as a few groundsmen at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium, which is due to host Mumbai Indians vs SunRisers Hyderabad on Tuesday, have also tested positive for the virus.
However, Delhi and Districts Cricket Association (DDCA) chief Rohan Jaitley asserted that "none of the groundsmen on duty" are among them.
The BCCI continued to insist that the league will go on, but Monday's developments have definitely cast a shadow on how the COVD-19 threat would be managed for an event being staged across six venues -- two at one time.
(With inputs from agencies)
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