With Indian Premier League 2020, scheduled to be held in the UAE from September 19 to November 10, the BCCI has issued some stringent Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) drafted by the board and shared with franchises.
A 16-page document accessed by The Daily Guardian has in detail guidelines to ensure the safety and health of all players and stakeholders involved during the tournament. According to the SOP, “The Bio-Secure Environment means only essential staff will be on site and no members of the public will be allowed. Therefore there will be more vacant areas at the stadium and hence the dressing room does not have to remain within the traditional area.”
The SOP also states, “The health and safety of all players and staff is paramount and these set of preventive measures are planned in order to minimise the risk of entry and transmission of Covid-19 infection within the cricketing setup. The guidelines will evolve depending on changes in the COVID-19 situation and latest guidelines issued by the local Government. The Bio-Secure Environment measures will be in place throughout the IPL 2020 season and cover the following environments Hotels, Training sessions, Matches and Transportation.”
Further, within the Bio-Secure Environment, a zoning principle will be applied to further reduce interactions and hence reduce the risks of cross infection. The stadium Bio-Secure Environment will be divided into the following zones: Zone 1 – Players and Match Official Area (PMOA) and Field of Play (FOP); Zone 2 – Inner Zone – All operational areas within the stadium complex; Zone 3 – Outer Zone – The area outside the stadium complex but within the boundary walls.
Breach of any Bio-Secure Environment protocols by players and team support staff will be punishable under the IPL Code of Conduct Rules.
The guidelines also state that franchises are not allowed to leave before 20 August, and have been advised to use chartered planes to get the players to the UAE, if possible. All Indian players and team support staff must undergo two Covid-19 PCR tests, 24 hours apart, in the week before assembling in the franchises’ city of choice. And once in UAE all support staff and players will have to be tested three times in the span of 6 days. They will have to remain under quarantine for this period in their hotel rooms. And once all three tests turn negative they are allowed into the bio-secure environments for regular training and practice. Franchises will also have to appoint their team doctors who’d be in charge of ensuring that all medical guidelines are followed.
The SOP also states that all “franchise teams will be put up in different hotels.” “Team members must be allotted rooms in a separate wing of the hotel that has a separate centralised air conditioning (AC) unit than the rest of the hotel. As per the guideline’s teams will be required to order food in individual rooms and avoid use of common dining areas “to prevent cross infection and coming in contact with other hotel guests.”
The SOP also states that franchises might install “Scalene Hypercharge Corona Canon (Shycocan), a device that has the ability to neutralise 99.9% of the coronavirus that might be floating in the air in closed spaces”.
Each IPL team will be given an electronic team sheet which will be handed over before each IPL game. BCCI has also directed the franchises to do team meetings virtually. This means while staying in the same hotel, physical contact will be minimized between the players. All team meetings will be conducted virtually. The other recommendations are mostly those which ICC has already stated in its SOP published earlier, including the ban on saliva to shine the ball.