A curtailed Indian Premier League was one of the options discussed at Saturday's meeting between BCCI and the eight IPL franchise owners in wake of the COVID-19 pandemic even as Kings XI Punjab's Ness Wadia said that he doesn't know when the T20 event will commence.
The BCCI on Friday suspended the IPL from March 29 to April 15 due to government-imposed travel restrictions and refusal of three states to host any matches.
"We cannot and no one, you know, is in a position today to say when it's going to start. We will review the situation after two to three weeks. And hopefully by then the cases will reduce," Wadia told reporters after IPL owners' meeting with BCCI president Sourav Ganguly and secretary Jay Shah.
A Board source, however, stuck to listing the options that were discussed at the meeting.
"There were six to seven options discussed during the meeting between team owners and BCCI including a curtailed IPL," the source told PTI on conditions of anonymity here.
Wadia made it clear that at this moment, the health safety measures are paramount.
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In India, there have been two deaths and more than 80 positive COVID-19 cases, resulting in a government directive to shut the fans out of sporting events to avoid large gatherings.
"The second option right now is that teams could be divided into two groups of four and then top four go into the play-offs. The third option is increase of double headers (played on weekdays)," the source informed.
The fourth option is holding all matches in just a couple of centres with restricted movements of players, support staff and TV crew.
Another option is to play behind closed doors and have all the 60 games in a shorter time frame which will ensure that the stakeholders do not lose out truckloads of money.
The source also confirmed that shifting the tournament abroad was not discussed at all in the meeting.
COVID-19 has resulted in more than 5,000 deaths globally.
Wadia said: "BCCI, IPL and (official broadcaster) Star (Sports) are clear that we are not looking at financial loss."