Could’ve hosted it in the UAE again. Is the weather that different in April/May and September?
@Velocity
The weather's pretty similar in April and September. July and August is at its peak in terms of temperature, September is when it slowly tapers off and April/May is when it starts to go up around the 35c mark. Pretty similar weather to India if not only a few degrees higher.
If anything, the UAE was by far the safest option to hold the IPL, and is the safest option in Asia to host the WT20. Over 60% of people have been vaccinated, the positivity rate is just below 1% (in terms of positive cases per total daily number of tests), a lot safer conditions than the last IPL held in the UAE. But for whatever reason, egos prevailed over common sense and the inevitable breach of the bubble by Covid has finally come. Just a slap in the face to the higher ups that thought playing a large tournament in a country struggling with Covid would do any good than making that money. This IPL has exposed the ignorant side of the BCCI, and the political aura that rises over that top threshold of power. They were way too lax on most things Covid related, ever since the first game in India during Covid times with the large crowds with no mask wearing.
Will be interested to see when and where the tournament will still go on. It will take a lot to bring all those resources to the UAE which they can't do currently because of the travel ban between India to UAE, plus there's a chance it could clash with the PSL, who are looking using the UAE to finish their tournament as well. The only bracket(s) available would be July/August, where the weather gets extremely hot, or after the WT20, where there would be a clash with the Australian/NZ summer or a small bracket between August and September which would still be very hot.