While fingers are crossed for a thunderous start to the IPL 2020, seven IPL franchises are still sweating getting their squad arranged in time to make up for numbers.
While most teams have now acclimatized to living in a biosecure environment in preparation for the 13th season the Indian Premier League, more than one team is waiting on additional playing eleven options which will only be made available after the England and Australian cricketers arrive in the UAE and join their respective teams.
It is not just Ben Stokes but several players that the teams have pinned their hopes on that are stuck in the current scenario where despite a relative biosecure passage from England to the UAE courtesy the ECB, pandemic demands mandatory quarantines.
While negotiations are on on the part of the BCCI to reduce the mandatory quarantine period in the UAE from six days to three, it does mean that more than one team gets off the block without the additional option of choosing from the foreign contingent.
Although it is expected to be only a temporary inconvenience, franchises do not want to lose too many matches on restricted choices and the race is on to induct these players having finished the limited-overs series in England recently.
As early wins and momentum do become important even in a long drawn tournament such as the IPL, this is why the protocol is making the franchisees sweat before the big build-up.
With key players like Glenn Maxwell stuck in this mayhem, the franchises are keen to kick-off to a big build-up. However, the hold up of the quarantine is not helping matters.
The franchises are banking so heavily on these players is because having played the series in England, they are in form players unlike most of the cricketers currently housed in the UAE because of pandemic related shutdowns which cut off the season in some countries and delayed the start in others.
As much as most teams have now recouped with the joining of the South African cricketers despite their own lockdown and also, the players from the Caribbean Premier League, the franchisee would want these additional in form cricketers to become options as they look to get off to a momentous start.
While the Australian cricketers were keen to play in the IPL and even made their plans in earnest to join their respective franchises in the UAE immediately after the England series, there was always the hurdle of the pandemic. To that end, the ECB even devised a plan such that the cricketers in England, already following quarantine norms, would continue to remain in a biosecure bubble while entering the UAE to ensure the smoothest possible transition from one tournament to the next.
But since all players who have landed in the UAE have had to undergo the mandatory quarantine and the spate of positive COVID tests in the CSK, even the South African cricketers had to undergo the quarantine because the franchisees thought it was in their best interest. If that intention has now changed, it is only because the interest has shifted, coming close on the heels of the start of the IPL.