NEW DELHI, Apr 22:
The twin city ‘Cluster Caravan’ format being used by the BCCI in the ongoing IPL could be the template for the ICC during the T20 World Cup the country is hosting in October-November, feels the global governing body’s bio-safety head Dave Musker.
An ICC team will be visiting India from April 26 to hold discussions and also inspect the arrangements with regards to all aspects of the global event.
Musker indicated that just like IPL has six venues (Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Kolkata) but is being held in only two cities at a given point in time (known as Cluster Caravan) before moving to next set, the template could also be green lighted for the T20 World Cup.
The BCCI has shortlisted nine cities for the T20 World Cup — Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Lucknow, Dharamsala — for the 16-team tournament.
“….The way the IPL is managed, they only have two venues engaged at one time. You haven’t got eight venues at one time,” Musker told ESPNCricinfo when asked if the number of venues could have been reduced.
“If the IPL works with this two-venue caravan model, then it is clearly a good starting point for us to understand how we may stage the men’s T20 World Cup,” Musker said, dropping broad hints as to how the global body plans to schedule the matches. (PTI)
Musker admitted that organising a bio-secure environment for a bilateral series is much easier than for a multi-team tournament or a franchisee league.
“The way I look at that is how many links you’ve got in the chain. If you have two teams, you’ve only got two links in the chain in one (biosafe) environment.
“If you have, for example, eight teams in the IPL — which is not our tournament but we have taken learnings from — you have got a significant additional complexity.
“So every additional link, every team, every different venue, you are adding a new complexity. None of this is straightforward, but tournament cricket, or franchise leagues, are much more tricky than bilateral series,” he said.
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