The IPL is back on track with few necessary changes and will now commence from 19^th September 2020 and will go on till 10^th November. 

• The first major change in IPL 2020 due to COVID pandemic is the changes in Venues. There has been a change in venue and now the much awaited Indian Premier League will be played in UAE. 
   
• There will be three venues where the matches would be played; they are Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah.
   
• There will be some restrictions in the number of players each team can take with them and the timings of the IPL.
   
• Matches will start half an hour earlier from the natural timing i.e. evening matches from 7:30pm onwards and afternoon matches from 3:30pm onwards. However there is still some debate going on about this which will be sought out in a meeting held by BCCI on Sunday 16^th August.
   
• The players will be kept inside a Bio-secured environment and no-one including their wives or girlfriends would be allowed to leave the bubble under any circumstances. 
   
• Aakash Copra in a tweet wrote “Darshak won’t become fielders this time”. Since the crowd won’t be allowed to watch the tournament from the stadiums, one of his favourite lines stating the ball being caught by the spectators in the stadium every time a batsman hits a massive six won’t be true for this season. 
   
• This season would bring some new challenges to players outside the stadium as well. Hope our players perform well.

What happens if the IPL 2020 players are tested positive for COVID?

COVID tests will be conducted once in every five days till the training period and 2-3 times when the matches start. 

 If any player tests positive of COVID, then he would immediately be taken out of the Bio-secure environment. 

If the player is found to be asymptomatic then he would be hospitalised, in case of mild symptoms, the player would be taken out of a bio-secure environment for two weeks and can only return after getting negative in two consecutive tests which will happen in 24 hours interval.

The player would also have to go through cardiac screening to play with his team again.

  New rules for this season IPL 2020

     As the tournament comes close, the rules and regulations for this season have become clearer. However there hasn’t been much change in set of rules for the game, some additional help has been provided for better judgement and maintaining the flow of the game.

• Substitute Players Rule

This season Ganguly has affirmed that in the upcoming season there would be a provision of concussion substitute. According to this rule, if a bowler, fielder or batsman suffers a concussion, then the teams can replace the injured player during the game. However the replacement must be approved by the match referee and it should be a like-for-like replacement.

• No Ball rule

A new addition for the season, this rule lays down that the front foot no-balls will now be adjudicated by a separate TV umpire, in another addition to this year’s IPL.