'If they don’t make money for a year, what trouble will they get into?' - Shoaib Akhtar in agreement of IPL's suspension

Former Pakistan speedster Shoaib Akhtar stands in agreement with the BCCI’s call to suspend IPL 2021 indefinitely amid an outbreak of Covid-19 inside the bio-bubble. Akhtar feels that it was never the correct time to conduct the tournament in such devastating times, especially considering India’s severe situation.

Notably, India is jolted by a second wave of the pandemic, much worse and deadlier than the previous one, with cases being recorded to the north of 3,00,000 consecutively for two weeks now. A week ago, Akhtar had called out the authorities for continuing with the tournament despite such a grim situation in the nation, and he was not alone in raising eyebrows over IPL’s 14th edition.

The BCCI and the IPL Governing Council, in a unanimous decision, held the tournament postponed, suggesting that the move had become imperative to ensure the security and health of all the involved stakeholders. There have been as many as seven people returning Covid-19 positive across different camps and bubbles in the IPL thus far.

People are dying and you cannot have pomp and show: Shoaib Akhtar

“When I said a couple of weeks ago that the IPL should be stopped this year, there were emotions behind it. And it was that there is a national catastrophe that is taking place in India. People are dying. And I made the appeal because there were 4 lakh cases being reported a day. During such times, IPL cannot take place, the pomp and show cannot take place,” Akhtar said on his YouTube channel.

“I didn’t have a problem with people not making money. People have been making money since 2008. If they don’t make money for a year, what trouble will they get into? People are dying and you cannot have pomp and show. It’s a national disaster. So as a neighbour, I was requesting that the IPL should be stopped.”

Akhtar further pointed out that bio-secure bubbles are not the way forward, especially when it comes to franchise cricket. “IPL was never viable. We made a bio-secure bubble in the PSL and it completely flopped. India tried and the same happened there. In UAE and England, we would have had it. Over here, even people working in hotels are not safe. They don’t remain in bio-secure bubble. International cricket can take place in a bubble, but not franchise cricket because the entire world comes. The IPL is not a small event,” Akhtar added.

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