The TLDR: The Indian Premier League has decided to indefinitely postpone the 2021 season after a flurry of new Covid cases. A wise decision but why did the much vaunted bio bubble burst? 

Editor’s note: For more context: We offered details on the lead-up to this decision in yesterday’s Big Story.

Why did they suddenly shut it down?

The cause: The league was already grappling with the fallout of two Kolkata Knight Riders players—Varun Chakravarthy and Sandeep Warrier—testing positive. Chennai Super Kings had at least two cases in its non-playing staff, including bowling coach Lakshmipathy Balaji. But Tuesday brought fresh bad news: Sunrisers Hyderabad wicket keeper Wriddhiman Saha and Delhi Capitals spinner Amit Mishra also tested positive. And CSK’s batting coach Michael Hussey’s first Covid test was positive.

The effects: When someone tests positive, the entire team plus staff has to self-isolate for six days—and can’t play any games. And the other teams they’ve recently played against also have to quarantine. So the new cases destroyed the IPL schedule in one fell swoop:

“With four teams in quarantine—Kolkata Knight Riders, Delhi Capitals, Chennai Super Kings and Sunrisers Hyderabad—the writing was on the wall for the BCCI. The tournament couldn’t be run in such a ‘shoddy situation’ was how a franchise official put it.”

And this: Each day brings the risk of new cases—and both a health and PR nightmare. As one league source put it: “As it is the IPL’s brand value has taken a beating and we couldn’t afford it to slip further.”

And finally this: Morale appears to have dropped precipitously among players. There was already talk of foreign players feeling anxious. The new cases appear to have sparked an outright rebellion among some. According to The Telegraph, “A very senior member of one of the franchise’s coaching staff had stopped taking interest in practice sessions and was more concerned about his well-being.”

The final outcome: The IPL and the BCCI administration unanimously decided to postpone the season with immediate effect, saying:

“The BCCI does not want to compromise on the safety of the players, support staff and the other participants involved in organising the IPL. This decision was taken keeping the safety, health and well-being of all the stakeholders in mind.”

Is it canceled or postponed?

As of today, 29 out of 60 matches have been played—i.e. we’re at the midway mark. Various unofficial quotes in media reports indicate that the league is considering a window either before the World T20 tournament or later in October/November:

“We are looking to conduct the remaining IPL matches after we host the World T20 in October-November. If all goes well, we will host both the World T20 and the remainder of the IPL in India.”

Point to note: It will be hard to persuade foreign teams to return to India after this bio-bubble debacle, and it may be a while before cricket is played on home soil:

“Indeed, a BCCI official conceded that ‘it will be a miracle’ if they agree to travel. It’s a major roadblock, with everyone being apprehensive. We are still confident of hosting the tournament and hope that the wave subsides and teams agree to travel to India. At the moment, it appears a distant possibility and we may have to host the event in the UAE.”

What happens to the foreign players?

The BCCI has underlined its pledge to get all the players safely home. Every cricketer and member of the staff will have to show three negative Covid tests before leaving the country. So we’re not sure why the BCCI is saying, “Some of them will return home tomorrow.”

Home country rules: India is on the UK’s ‘red list’, and so the players will have to quarantine for 10 days at a hotel on their return. South Africa only requires a Covid-negative certificate. Kiwi players have to undergo a 14-day quarantine. 

In big trouble: The Australians. The reason: The government has banned anyone from flying into the country from India before May 15—threatening fines and even a jail term (though their PM dialed that threat down). In a joint press statement, Australian Cricketers’ Association and Cricket Australia said that they will “respect the decision of the Australian Government… and will not seek exemptions.” Reports suggest that the 40 Australian players plus coaches and commentators will instead head to the Maldives—and wait out their time there.

Why did the bubble break?

One: Hubris. It was likely a mistake to host the IPL season in India—but the league and the BCCI were afflicted with the same post-first wave complacency as the government. As The Hindu reports: 

“Despite multiple stakeholders, including key personnel in organising the event, having expressed apprehensions about hosting IPL 2021 in India during the pandemic, the BCCI went ahead with its plan to treat the event as a dry run for the T20 World Cup.”

Also this: “They had ignored calls to host it in the UAE again since it was felt that the event would serve as a morale-booster in India.” And they refused to reconsider their decision even when the cases started to surge in March/early April.

Two: Shoddy planning. Air travel is one of the weakest points of any bio-bubble—and wisdom lies in minimising it. Each visit to the airport carries the hazard of infection. As one franchise official notes, “All cases have been reported after the teams travelled from one city to another and there’s every chance that at least one franchise member contracted the virus during that period.”

But the IPL ignored that bit of advice as well: 

“Even in early March, a plan for staging the tournament in four venues in the Mumbai-Pune corridor, avoiding air travel, was presented to the BCCI top brass. But the Board decided to take a calculated risk and finalised a caravan format with six host cities.”

Even in April, the plan could have been revised and restricted to the three stadiums in Mumbai—Wankhede, Brabourne and DY Patil. 

Three: Poor execution. A big part of securing a bio-bubble is constant monitoring of everyone’s movements. Here’s how it worked during the 2020 season last year:

“In the UAE, every member in the IPL bubble had to wear a GPS-tracking fob device around their neck like a pendant. This device tracked the person's movements within the bubble and triggered a beep if there was any breach where the individual had crossed over into a zone where he/she was not permitted access. This was done by creating a geo-fence within the bubble with pre-defined boundaries. Every individual had a distinct fob, with specified in-built boundaries based on the individual's occupation.”

But this year, the IPL opted for human ‘bubble integrity managers’—four people per franchise. But as always with humans, performance can be an issue. Even before the season started, one of these managers was caught sneaking out of his hotel room. And instead of hiring the UK firm that made 2020 a success, each of the 12 bio-bubbles were monitored by hospitals and testing labs—via a bluetooth FOB that didn’t work well at all.

Four: Weak standard operating procedures. There were plenty of potential leak points within the bubble thanks to lax protocols. Example: The ground staff were not kept within the bubble—neither were emergency replacements for team drivers and other such ancillary employees.

The bottomline: In other words, the IPL imploded for all the same reasons the entire country is imploding right now. Perfect symbol of the IPL’s ruinous sense of entitlement: this clip of traffic being blocked to let a team convoy pass through in Gujarat:

Reading list

Times of India has a long list of everything that was wrong with the IPL bio-bubble. ESPNCricinfo has a good compare-and-contrast piece on the 2020 vs 2021 arrangements. The Telegraph has more on the league’s refusal to take good advice. Indian Express sums up what will happen with the foreign players.