Delhi elections force changes in IPL 2017 schedule

What’s the story?

Owing to elections in the national capital, IPL 2017’s schedule is set to undergo minor changes, with a few matches set to be rescheduled. The change has forced the committee to interchange the home and away fixtures for the Delhi Daredevils and Mumbai Indians’ two encounters, while the match between Rising Pune Supergiants and Sunrisers Hyderabad on the day of the elections has been brought forward by four hours.

In case you didn’t know…

It is not the first time that elections have affected the domestic T20 league, set to start its tenth edition starting next month. In 2009, owing to the general elections, the whole tournament was shifted to South Africa. Security arrangements during the second season were in question owing to the five-phase elections, forcing BCCI to make stop-gap arrangements in South Africa.

In 2014, the first two weeks of the tournament were held in the UAE, when the fixtures happened to coincide with the Lok Sabha elections.

The heart of the matter

With the MCD (Municipal Corporation of Delhi) elections scheduled to be held on April 22, the match between Delhi Daredevils and Mumbai Indians on the same date will now be played at 8 pm instead of 4 pm, in Mumbai.

Due to the above change, the match between Rising Pune Supergiants and Sunrisers Hyderabad on the same day will be played at 4 pm.

Furthermore, Delhi will host Mumbai on May 6 at the Feroze Shah Kotla, instead of the Wankhede, the original venue.Here is the revised schedule for the matches:

MATCH	VENUE	DATE	TIME
MI vs DD	MUMBAI	April 22	20:00 IST
RPS vs SRH	PUNE	April 22	16:00 IST
DD vs MI	DELHI	May 06	20:00 IST

What’s next?

The tenth edition of the IPL starts on April 5, with the Sunrisers Hyderabad taking on the Royal Challengers Bangalore in Hyderabad. Delhi Daredevils, who has now swapped the home and away venues with Mumbai Indians for their two encounters, will play their first match against Royal Challengers at the Chinnaswamy stadium on April 8.

Author’s take

The minor changes are unlikely to affect any of the teams, for the committee has merely swapped the fixtures, making sure that the Delhi and Mumbai crowds don’t miss out on the action.

Hopefully, more matches aren’t affected by the elections, especially because there’s hardly any time now to find makeshift arrangements if the situation does arise.