Along with Indian Umpires, 4 ICC leading Umpires will be included in 2020 IPL:
In the 13th edition of the Indian Premier League, four numbers of ICC leading Panel umpires are set to officiate. The 2020 IPL is scheduled to be started from 19th September.
As per the sources, in total 16 numbers of umpires officiate in this 2020 IPL, and besides Indian umpires, 4 ICC leading umpires also officiate the tournament. That elite panel includes Richard Ellingworth of England, Chris Gaffaney of New Zealand, Nitin Menon of India, and Paul Reifel of Australia. And other umpires are picked from the BCCI.
The sources said “Four leading umpires of ICC are chosen to be officiating in the league. The remaining are all Indian umpires. We are planning to bring those umpires around 10th September in the UAE.”
The 13th edition of the IPL is scheduled to be held from 19th September to 10th November in the UAE in three venues- Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Sharjah.
For the first time, the last match of the cash-rich tournament is planned to be held on a weekday, i.e. Tuesday. This time, the two matches will be held half-an-hour before the usual time.
Precautionary measures for COVID-19:
According to the Standard Operating Procedure (SOPs) for the 13th IPL edition, match officials along with players have been advised to go back to their hotel rooms and have a shower after the completion of the matches as a precautionary measure against the COVID-19. All the eight squads have also been advised to utilize electronic squad sheets than keeping hard copies of their team members during toss on match days.
The 2020 IPL won’t carry any toss mascot this time and according to the reports, the officials and players will need to wear Bluetooth-enabled badges, which help in contact tracing. The Bluetooth-enabled badge can be opened inside their rooms only and on the field.
