Ness Wadia, the owner of Punjab Kings (PBKS) erstwhile Kings XI Punjab, in an interview with NDTV, said that the decision to suspend the IPL was the best choice.
On Tuesday, the 14th edition of the league came to an abrupt end after the number of positive cases increased to 7. Amit Mishra and Wriddhiman Saha, along with Chennai Super Kings batting coach Michael Hussey were the new additions.
“Best decision has been taken given the circumstances. Lots of people are suffering in India”, Wadia remarked.
The 49-year-old further observed that the preparation and planning start two months before the commencement of the league.
“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 the situation deteriorated so quickly.”
He also said that the issue of the ground staff not being in a big bubble should have been fixed as five members of Delhi’s ground staff had also tested positive for COVID-19.
“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,” Wadia added.
Further, he said that there is uncertainty as to when the tournament will resume.
“I am not sure, it might happen sometime in the future.”
When asked about his views on the criticism going around IPL that it should not have been played in the first place when the country is in such mayhem, Wadia said,
“If this IPL had gone off, and if almost if not more than 50% had gone off without any hiccup or cases, people would have said it’s amazing, India’s amazing, it’s amazing what the BCCI has done.”
“There will always be naysayers, those who say don’t do things. I think it’s good that we demonstrated that India can hold international events of this scale, protecting the people.”
“There are lessons to be learned as to whether there should be lesser venues, what is the gap in the testing. But it’s happened with other international tournaments. In Australia, the Australian Open. They had to postpone it, they had to shut the city down. France is the same, the French Open was postponed by a week,” the PBKS co-owner added.
The PBKS co-owner also lauded the Indian players who featured in the tournament.
“Hats off to the Indian players who have been playing non-stop in bubbles since August last year and not complained unlike some of the foreign players.”
