The BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur has revealed that the members of the Indian Premier League Governing Council will deliberate over whether the IPL 2017 edition can be held abroad.

“The IPL governing council will be looking at the venues in India and abroad. We have to check the availability of the venues and prevailing conditions,” Thakur told a select gathering of journalists during an interaction at the BCCI’s Delhi headquarters today.

The IPL has been held abroad twice till date due to the assembly level elections that were happening at the same time. In 2009, the entire IPL was shifted to South Africa while in 2014, it was shifted to the UAE for the first 15 days.

BCCI treasurer Aniruddh Chaudhary had tweeted four days back: “Very soon IPL may be played outside the country, if this goes on. Loss to the GDP would not be insignificant.”

There is a school of thought that if there is a drop in revenue and players take a pay-cut, the BCCI will then be compelled to allow them to ply their trade in foreign T20 leagues like the ‘Big Bash’, Caribbean Premier League (CPL), Bangladesh Premier League, to name a few.

In another move, the BCCI is mulling on having a commentators’ academy where those who would aspire a career behind the microphone will get to hone their skills.

“We are planning to have a commentators’ academy where interested youngsters who want to take up the profession will be able to hone their skills. And it will cater to various regional languages. We have seen how Virender Sehwag’s commentary has struck a chord with the cricket lovers during the recently-concluded World T20,” said Thakur. (VIVOIPL)