Punjab Kings co-owner Ness Wadia on Tuesday welcomed the idea of BCCI as they cancelled the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). However, he also backed the decision to host the league in India amid the COVID-19 threat, saying that it was the “right call” before the situation got worse as well.
Notably, the Indian Premier League was on Tuesday suspended indefinitely after many players have been reported positive for COVID-19. However, Wadia welcomed the decision to suspend the league during this time.
“Best decision has been taken given the circumstances. Lot of people are suffering in India,” Wadia told PTI. “Due diligence was done before the IPL but no one is perfect. The right call was taken to hold it in India ahead of the World Cup it is just unfortunate that situation deteriorated so quickly.”
However, the decision to postpone the league was taken soon after Sunrisers Hyderabad batsman Wriddhiman Saha and Delhi Capitals’ veteran spinner Amit Mishra has joined the affected players’ list, along with Kolkata Knight Riders’ Varun Chakravarthy and Sandeep Warrier. On the other hand, Chennai Super Kings’ bowling coach L Balaji was among the non-playing staff to have been tested positive as well.
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Ness Wadia added, “If the ground staff wasn’t part of the whole bubble then that needs to be fixed. Also cutting down the venues also need to be considered forward to reduce the risk. I don’t think this has got anything to do in a specific country (India or UAE) would have made a difference. Everyone tried their best sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t.”
However, while speaking about the foreign players who had left the bio bubble midway into the league and returned home, which included Australia’s Adam Zampa and Andrew Tye, Wadia said that the situation was very different when the tournament started.
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“Hats off to the Indian players who have been playing non stop in bubbles and not complained unlike some of the foreign players. With due respect to the international cricketers including Zampa, the situation was very different a month ago. They should study the fact that cases were very less when we started before commenting on it. It happened during the Australia Open they shut the city down when it was happening. People didn’t complain then, why now,” Ness Wadia concluded.
