Brijesh Patel has confirmed that the BCCI has picked the UAE as the venue for 2020 IPL:

 

The chairman of the Indian Premier League, Brijesh Patel has confirmed that the Indian Cricket Board has selected UAE as the venue of the 2020 IPL and that plans are continuing to ensure a full-fledged league is organized and not only a shortened one.

On Monday (20-07-2020), the ICC declared the deferment of the T20 World Cup, which was scheduled to be taken place in Australia in between 18th October to 15th November later this year, and the decision of ICC cleared the BCCI to prepare to host IPL which is postponed for an indefinite period for COVID-19.

A number of reports suggest that the Indian Cricket Board is concentrating the IPL from 26th September to 8th November, but Brijesh Patel said that the dates will be confirmed only when the government provides them a green signal. Further, he said that the IPL governing body will conduct a meeting in a week’s time to take a decision on IPL 2020.

He said “Within a week, the IPL GC will meet and all decisions of IPL will be taken in that meeting. As per now, the plan is to have a full-fledged Indian Premier League, consisting of 60 matches that are most likely to be held in UAE. Only the operational side is the difficult part. Whether you conduct it in-country or overseas, it doesn’t matter much with no spectators.”

It is nothing new for BCCI to conduct IPL in UAE. In the year 2014, a part of the IPL held in UAE because of the general election in the country. The first 20 matches of the tournament held in the Dubai International Stadium and in the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium of Abu Dhabi. Last month only, UAE offered BCCI to host IPL and Brijesh Patel revealed that the BCCI is about to inform UAE of its plans.