Absence of a few foreign players not going to stop us from completing IPL: Rajiv Shukla

After the BCCI announced that it will be completing the remaining matches of IPL 2021 in UAE, there have been murmurs about the availability of the foreign players. However, BCCI vice president Rajiv Shukla, who is in the UAE, said that the tournament will be completed irrespective of whether foreign talent is available or not.

Shukla is in the UAE to hold discussions regarding the arrangements for the league.

“I am already here. Now a team of BCCI office-bearers, president (Sourav Ganguly), secretary (Jay Shah) and the IPL chairman (Brijesh Patel) will be coming here in a couple of days,” Shukla told Khaleej Times.

“We will be having discussions with the cricket board here and the other authorities. And accordingly, the schedule will be made, so the tournament happens in a very smooth manner as it happened here last year,” he added.

Regarding the issue of foreign players’ availability, he said that Franchises will look for replacements in case some players are not available.

“We have discussed that (foreign players) issue also. Our main focus is on completing this edition of the IPL. It should not be left halfway through. So, whichever foreign players are available is fine. Whoever is not available, it is not going to stop us from hosting the tournament. The Indian players are there, foreign players are there, but few foreign players will not be available. As I said, we have to complete our tournament.

“So the franchises will definitely look for other players. Whoever is available, we are going to have the tournament with them. That’s our policy," he added.

He also said that the BCCI was discussing the issue of having spectators during the matches.

“The only issue is about the spectators, whether they will allow the spectators or not. So we will talk to them about that. We will go by whatever UAE authorities decide. “If they say it’s with spectators, and a certain percentage of spectators, we are fine. Or if they say without spectators, that is also fine with us. There is no problem,” he concluded.