Maharashtra Health Minister Wants IPL To Be Postponed

The Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra banned the ticket sales for the first match of the 2020 Indian Premier League. The match is between Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings and it is scheduled for March 29.

Maharashtra imposes ban on ticket sale of IPL match

It is to avoid gathering of a large number of people amid the spread of coronavirus in the country. The 13th season of IPL will start on March 29 and continue till May 24 in the country. But Mumbai went into high alert when its total count of COVID-19 patients reached 7. Recently two persons tested positive for coronavirus in Maharashtra.

Health Minister of Maharashtra on the ticket sale ban

Rajesh Tope, the Health Minister of Maharashtra, said that the government cold consider postponing the IPL because of the coronavirus threat that had already killed over 3,000 people worldwide. He said large gatherings pose a greater risk of coronavirus spread. He informed the media persons that discussions were held in the official circle whether to postpone the IPL. He further said that a decision regarding IPL would be made shortly.

Sourav Ganguli on postponement of IPL

Board of Cricket Control in India President Sourav Ganguli asserted that IPL would start as scheduled and there would be no change in dates. He assured that all precautions would be taken to keep things safe. He further said that medical team was ready and in touch with leading hospitals so that everything was available.

Source: https://bit.ly/38KOY92

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Mumbai Indians And Chennai Super Kings Release 12 And 5 Players Respectively

Mumbai Indians released 12 players from its squad but retained its core squad of 18 players that won a record fourth Indian Premier League (IPL) title this year. The three traded-ins in form of New Zealand seamer Trent Boult, Sherfane Rutherford of West Indies and Dhawal Kulkarni from Rajasthan Royals are in the core squad.

List of retained players:

Rohit Sharma, Hardik Pandya
JaspritBumrah
Krunal Pandya
Ishan Kishan
Surya Kumar Yadav
Rahul Chahar
Anmolpreet Singh
Jayant Yadav
Aditya Tare
Anukul Roy
Dhawal Kulkarni (Traded in)
Quinton de Kock
Kieron Pollard
Sherfane Rutherford (Traded in)
Lasith Malinga, Mitchell McClenaghan
Trent Boult (Traded in)

List of released players:

Evin Lewis, Adam Milne
Jason Behrendorff
Beuran Hendricks
Ben Cutting
Yuvraj Singh
Mayank Markande (Traded out)
BarinderSran
Rasikh Salam
Pankaj Jaswal
Siddhesh Lad (Traded out)
Alzarri Joseph

Mumbai Indians looking for more players

The 2020 edition of IPL will be held in Kolkata in December. But Mumbai Indians is far from prepared for the tournament. It requires 5 domestic and 2 foreign players to complete its squad.

Chennai Super Kings rejigged its squad

The three-time IPL champion also felt the need for restructuring of its squad. But it released only five players and retained rest of the squad. It is to be noted that MS Dhoni is captain of this team.

List of retained players:

MS Dhoni (captain & WK)
Suresh Raina
Ambati Rayudu
Shane Watson
Faf du Plessis
Murali Vijay
Kedar Jadhav
Ravindra Jadeja
Rituraj Gaikwad
Dwayne Bravo
Karn Sharma
Imran Tahir
Harbhajan Singh
Mitchell Santner
Shardul Thakur
K M Asif
David Willey
Deepak Chahar
N Jagadeesan (WK)

List of released players:

Mohit Sharma
Sam Billings
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