The opening ceremony of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2018 that was scheduled to take place on April 6, has now been postponed by a day to April 7, and the budget has been reduced by ₹20 crore. According to a BCCI official, the decision for the stated changes has been made at the direction of Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA).

With IPL being its maximum profit earner, the BCCI was planning to have a huge opening ceremony on April 6 at the Cricket Club of India (CCI), a day before the tournament’s first match in Mumbai with a massive budget of ₹50 crore – an increase from ₹30 crore spent for last edition’s opening ceremony across eight centres.

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The first match of the cash-rich league will be played on April 7 between Defending champions Mumbai Indians (MI), and two-times winners Chennai Super Kings (CSK) at the Wankhede Stadium.

As quoted in Indian Express, one of the BCCI officials said, “Earlier the event was scheduled for April 6 at the Cricket Club of India. Now it has been decided by the CoA that it will happen on April 7 at Wankhede before the 2018 IPL opener.”

CoA took the final call on IPL opening ceremony

The decision of reduction in the budget of the opening ceremony too came from the CoA. The official said, “Earlier the budget for the ceremony was ₹50 crore (approved by the IPL governing council), now it has been reduced to ₹30 crore. This call, too, has been taken by the CoA.”

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This move has not gone down too well in the BCCI, and it is expected that the unhappy IPL GC will take up the matter with COA during its next meeting on March 13.

Despite the change in the opening ceremony, the schedule for the tournament remains unchanged.