IPL 2020 Auction to go on as planned despite protests over CAA

The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) has taken the entire nation by a storm. Protests over this contentious act have spread across various parts of the country. In an attempt to force the centre to revoke this act which makes it easier for the non-Muslim population from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan to become citizens of India, the opposition parties, students and several other groups are holding demonstrations. Kolkata is one of those regions with intense teach-ins and thus there were concerns about the IPL 2020 Auction.

The upcoming auction for the premier domestic tournament in India is scheduled to be held on 19 December 2019. But since the situation seems very volatile at the moment, there were talks about the postponement or shift of venue. However, the BCCI hasn’t hit the panic button yet. It has been informed that the IPL auction will go ahead as per the plans.

The IPL auctions are on and the franchises will be arriving by Wednesday

A senior BCCI official confirmed the news about the event going on as per plan. He further noted that the franchises will start arriving by Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning. “As of Monday evening, IPL auctions are on. Franchises will start arriving by tomorrow evening and Wednesday morning,” he said as quoted by Sportstar.

This auction is a relatively smaller one before the big event next year. The focus for all the eight teams will be to plug in the gaps in their squads. Earlier, they released a few players who they felt weren’t fitting into their plans nicely. 332 players have been shortlisted for the IPL 2020 Auction. However, there are just 73 slots to be filled. Thus, the franchises are expected to be smart with their decisions.

Out of these 73, 29 overseas players can be selected at the most. The likes of Glenn Maxwell, Shimron Hetmyer and Dale Steyn are amongst several others who are set to go under the hammer. The much-awaited auction though might get affected with the protests increasing every passing day.

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