The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Thursday told the Madras High Court that it would be bound by advisories issued by the Centre with regard to conduct of the Indian Premier League (IPL) T20 matches in the wake of threat of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and that it was not going to exceed any government decision.
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The submission was made before a Division Bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and Krishnan Ramasamy during the hearing of a public interest litigation petition filed by advocate G. Alex Benziger seeking a direction to the Centre to restrain the BCCI from conducting the IPL T20 matches from March 29 to May 24 in order to avoid the crowd.
Senior counsel P.R. Raman, representing the BCCI, told the judges that there may not be any need for the court’s intervention on the issue since the board itself had been discussing about it and an appropriate decision would be taken at the earliest. He said, certain guidelines had also been issued already and that steps were being taken in the right direction.
Call for cancellation
However, the petitioner’s counsel insisted that the matches should be cancelled forthwith by following similar practice adopted by many countries across the globe.
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He said, events including the World Athletic Indoor Championship to be held in Nanjing had been cancelled and some of them were to be conducted behind closed doors as a preventive measure.
In reply, Raman said, there were also countries which had decided not to postpone sporting events.
“I’m appearing for Respondents 3 (BCCI) and 4 (Chennai Super Kings). Some things are already happening. Right now four international cricket matches are on in various parts of the world.
“On IPL, we have to decide and we’ll come back after taking a decision,” he said.
