Since the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has disrupted the cricketing calendar, the Indian Premier League (IPL) was one of the major tournaments to take a hit, with the schedule delayed until April 15, from its previous start date of March 29.
The franchise owners and BCCI officials are now having meetings regularly to decide on the state of the tournament. And the latest development in the story is that all eight franchises have now called-off their pre-tournament camps because of the virus.
The Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) is the latest club to do so by deferring their training camp, which was initially set to begin on March 21.
Defending champs Mumbai Indians (MI), Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have also canceled their camps.
On Friday (March 13), BCCI suspended the IPL till mid-April following government-imposed travel restrictions owing to the COVID-19 pandemic that has so far taken more than 6,500 lives globally while infecting over 1,60,000 people.
India has so far reported 114 positive cases of COVID-19 with two deaths.
Meanwhile, CSK star batsman Suresh Raina, who left the camp on Saturday (March 14), has expressed his thoughts and publicly appealed to his fans and followers on social media to stop sharing fake news regarding the coronavirus outbreak.
“It’s very important that we understand the need of social isolation to break the chain, don’t spread information from unreliable sources, don’t ignore the health advisories & for sure follow the hygiene measures.#coronavirus,” Raina wrote on Twitter.
It’s very important that we understand the need of social isolation to break the chain, don’t spread information from unreliable sources, don’t ignore the health advisories & for sure follow the hygiene measures.#coronavirus pic.twitter.com/F0IgIB8rhx
— Suresh Raina🇮🇳 (@ImRaina) March 16, 2020
