What will be the future of Indian cricket outside India?

Cricket is the biggest sport in India. Indians, by nature, love cricket either through playing or watching and supporting cricket teams and players. Indians also love cricket betting. In fact, most go to trusted cricket betting sites such as 10cric.com for predictions, odds, and betting lines today cricket matches, as well as upcoming games. However, can Indian cricket survive as a sport without the viewership and support of India and the Indian people?

Let us take a deeper look at the recent decision to move Indian cricket this year outside of India.

India and the pandemic

While most countries of the world had struggled with the effects brought about by this COVID-19 pandemic, India rose to be one of the most affected countries in the whole world. Currently, India is the second country with the highest number of reported cases of infection. India has already surpassed Brazil sometime back, while the United States still has the most number of cases in the world. This happened due to India having the strictest and most extreme lockdown measures among all other countries that also made use of lockdowns to prevent the spread of the virus. However, the number of cases keeps on rising and even law enforcement and health workers are starting to get compromised due to virus exposure. While one can easily blame the government or to the implementing bodies of the government, it is not as easy as that. Political and health analysts agree that the case of India is not all about bad governance or bad policymaking, but rather an honest lack of capability of the state to handle a situation as extreme as it is right now.

With the economy of the country also suffering due to this crisis, one of the things that India badly needs is a boost in economic activity. With the Indian Premier League just in time for a new season, what then could be a better way to increase economic activity than gathering people and opening the new season of the IPL? After all, the Indian Premier League has an estimated net worth of more than $6 billion. If there is one sector that could rake in a lot of revenue, it is the IPL. On the other hand, the country cannot afford to gather millions of people to cheer for their favorite team, as it would only put the country in a deeper compromise when it comes to the virus. With that in mind, the decision to make this season’s cricket games outside of India comes in.

Indian cricket, just not in India

Even though India cannot afford to hold a sporting event as big as the IPL this season, the games must, as they say, still go on. With that, the decision was to hold the season more than a thousand miles away from India--in the United Arab Emirates. Sports analysts believe that while this is indeed a challenging time for the IPL and the entire cricket industry of India, the sport and will push through and come out of this whole situation well.

Also, the selection of UAE as an alternative location makes perfect sense, especially when considering how perfect it is as a sport, recreation, and transport hub. Additionally, the UAE has been known to be a favorite place for major sporting events in the past. If anything, the decision to move Indian cricket outside of India is the best decision right now both to keep the sport alive and to help the country’s economy by giving it a boost, even if in the slightest.