COVID-19 Derails Global cricket: BCCI President Sourav Ganguly declared, the Indian board will lose 2500 Cr if IPL 2021 doesn’t get completed. According to Ganguly and many other BCCI officials, the richest cricket board will struggle financially with this big hit. Just imagine if the richest cricket board can struggle financially with hit from Covid-19 what will be the state of various other cricket boards. According to InsideSport.co analysis Covid-19 has already derailed, cancelled, postponed more than 150 days of International LIVE Cricket Globally. This has resulted in financial struggles for for various boards world-wide in last 12 months.
Be it Cricket Australia who had to fire most of their staff as cost cutting measures or England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) who according to their own admission have taken a hit of $200Mn due to Covid-19 – or smaller boards like Cricket South Africa, Sri Lanka Cricket, Cricket West Indies & Bangladesh Cricket Board – all are badly hit financially due to pandemic.
Most of the boards are failing to fulfill their FTP commitments resulting in loss of revenues from media rights and sponsorship monies.
COVID-19 Derails Global cricket – More than 150 Days of International Cricket postponed, cancelled in last 12 months
Indian Premier League: IPL 2020, originally scheduled to be held in April 2020, was postponed to September due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was also moved out of India and was hosted in the UAE saving Indian cricket from losing billion of dollars. BCCI may again save themselves by organizing remaining part of IPL 2021 in September – but most of the other cricket boards have not been that lucky.
More than 15 International series have been cancelled due to Covid-19 with only 30% of the FTP commitment getting fulfilled. Leave aside the Bilateral Cricket, even ICC T20 World Cup had to be postponed by 1 year due to Covid-19.
Asia Cup T20 also has fallen prey to Covid-19 and may struggle to get a appropriate window for the postponed edition.
Impact of COVID-19 on cricket: Major series and tournaments that have been cancelled/ postponed
– Sri Lanka vs England postponed
– India vs South Africa ODI series
– Pakistan vs Bangladesh postponed (2020)
– Australia-Bangladesh Test series
– Sri Lanka vs South Africa limited-overs series
– Bangladesh vs New Zealand
– Sri Lanka vs Bangladesh
– Pakistan Super League
– ICC T20 World Cup
– Asia Cup postponed twice
– Australia tour of South Africa cancelled
– Bangladesh Premier League postponed
– Afghanistan’s tour of ZIM postponed
– SA vs ENG cancelled
Impact of COVID-19 on women’s cricket: Major series and tournaments that have been cancelled/ postponed
If Men’s cricket has been hit so badly – one can imagine what is the situation with women cricket. The women’s cricket has suffered the most due to the pandemic. Indian women’s team did not play any matches for seven months as the BCCI could not schedule matches due to the pandemic. In last 15 months only 1 series has been organized for India i.e against South Africa at home.
Indian Women team hasn’t played any game other than the said series. Same is the case with most other cricket nations where women cricket had started establishing itself.
– Women’s Asia Cup, World Cup in New Zealand postponed
– South Africa emerging tour of Bangladesh cut short
– ENG vs SA cancelled
– Australia vs SA cancelled
– Ireland and Scotland’s tour of Spain postponed
Along with women’s cricket, cricket in smaller test nations & associate nations have suffered the most. Just take the case of Afghanistan Cricket who is literally struggling for any form of international cricket and has been involved in just 12 days of international cricket in last 14 months.
