Due to rising coronavirus cases, the Government of India reckoned it was too risky to allow the Indian Premier League, cricket's lucrative extravaganza, to be held within the country in 2020. On 10th August, the Board of Control for Cricket in India received approval from the Central Government for its request to relocate the 13th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament to the United Arab Emirates.
Why did BCCI select UAE as the destination for hosting IPL? Weren't there suitable alternatives within India or in our immediate neighborhood which were more viable? This wasn't the first time IPL had been relocated - it was played in South Africa and UAE in 2019 and 2014 respectively as the central government had expressed its inability to provide adequate security arrangements to the league, which is normally held at a minimum of eight venues and across nearly three months within the country, due to the national general elections coinciding with this tournament.
Since Siting is an area that I am passionate about, I was curious to know what Location Analytics had to suggest regarding this relocation decision. Before I begin to explain my findings, spare a minute to think of potential venues, within India or overseas, which could have been viable alternatives to the Sharjah-Dubai-Abu Dhabi venue combo that UAE offers.
Shifting IPL to a location outside Asia, be it a South Africa, Australia or an England, was not even considered as an option by the BCCI - this is understandable given the logistical challenges of organizing the tournament as well as quarantining the participants from around the world (a majority of whom are Indian) during the pandemic, the high costs of doing so notwithstanding (there wouldn't be ticketing revenues either as countries were in a lockdown-state).
At the outset, I felt that India should have accommodated the tournament itself if the BCCI was so keen to continue with it. After all, I thought to myself, 'we have so many cricket stadiums across the country. Surely, we'll be able to find a couple of viable venues close-to-each-other in regions where the ravaging pandemic is yet to make its mark.'
As is often the case, I realized my assumption was way off the mark - India had just twenty-three active International Cricket Stadiums that were operational, had floodlights, and were International Cricket Council (ICC) approved i.e. which had adequate infrastructure and amenities. Twenty-three is by no means a small number - in fact, it is the most any country in the world has for this sport. Just that I felt we would have at least fifty of them given the popularity of this sport in a geographically-vast nation! Even with twenty-three, I felt that we could have found a combination of suitable options.
Note: The GIS Application that I prepared (2024 Update:Â The application has expired) to perform this study can be accessed from https://arcg.is/0jD519 - you may navigate it as you read this post as there are many facets which would appeal to you as you explore the data yourself. Moreover, the representative images from the application included in this post may not always be self-explanatory.
What parameters should I choose for shortlisting the suitable combination of venues within India? - The answer to this was straightforward - the location characteristics of the combination should be preferably better, or similar at the very least, to what UAE had offered to BCCI.
UAE is geographically a small country, and it had offered 3 cricket stadiums which were situated in close proximity to one another. This would have been the central characteristic which swayed BCCI - it would be easier to schedule the matches and related-logistics for the eight teams (up to four teams play everyday) at these locations which also have the advantage of modern training facilities. More importantly, suitable accommodation (quarantine bubble) would not be difficult to find as each of these three locations are globally-renowned tourism hubs.
Modern Location Analytics platforms (GIS) are very powerful - Instead of finding the stadium proximity information using straight-line (Euclidean) distances, I used the Create Drive Time Areas geoprocessing tool to compute the driving distance coverage from Sharjah (which lies at one end in the combination) within a particular time frame of two hours (this tool can be configured to factor in Road Network, Vehicle Driving Speed, Time of the Day, Live Traffic Data, and so on).
In the visual above, you are observing the distance coverage from Sharjah stadium if you'd be driving a car for two hours, in any direction. It is evident that Abu Dhabi stadium, which is the farthest from Sharjah, falls just within the 2-hour drive time window. The road-connectivity between these three venues is excellent as well and barring any traffic-related disruptions, this time-window is very conducive for scheduling (For all I know, the teams can be put up in Dubai and can travel to any of these venues within an hour and a half max).
As I thought about the location dynamics (I had the good fortune of staying in this country for four months previously), it was becoming clearer to me why UAE appealed to BCCI - less time involved in travel, less touch points (no flights or trains, just travel by team bus or car and hence, lower chances of getting infected or infecting someone), luxury accommodation, modern training facilities - all these factors pointed towards the fact that it would be possible to create a strong bio-secure bubble here - something which BCCI deeply desired to arrange for the travelling contingent.
'Hang on', I said to myself 'Can't we have something similar in India - where the Drive Time is as convenient or even more favorable than the UAE?', I wondered.
Upon loading the data related to the Active International Cricket Stadiums of India on to the map application, it dawned on me that most of these venues were geographically dispersed-
Upon running the Create Drive Time Areas tool with the same 2-hour parameter as I had done for the UAE venues, this output was generated-
Fair to say, the output did not appear encouraging - no combination of three stadiums fell within the two-hour drive time window.
At best, there were three pairs of two stadiums which conformed to the set parameter - Mumbai's Wankhede and Brabourne stadiums, Delhi & Greater Noida stadiums, and Lucknow & Kanpur stadiums respectively. The closest three-stadium pairing in close proximity would be Mumbai's Wankhede & Brabourne and Pune's MCA Stadium (it would take 3 hours+ of driving to reach MCA stadium from South Mumbai). In case you are wondering, the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai has been converted into a footballing venue (as of 2020) and therefore does not feature as an Active International Cricketing venue. Alas, Mumbai (2) + Navi Mumbai (1) would have been the ideal three-location pairing, which would have fulfilled the 2-hour drive-time criterion!
October 2024 Update: I was put up in a hotel just behind the DY Patil Stadium, and going by the looks of it - it has been converted into a Cricket Stadium once again! Wikipedia indicates that Football matches are only played occasionally here and that the stadium was even used to host a number of cricket matches during IPL 2022. If only it was available during 2020😢!
I continued to jostle with the problem statement purely from a proximity standpoint. Could other countries within Asia be suitable?
Pakistan was obviously not an option that India would consider - so Bangladesh and Sri Lanka remained the only plausible choices, by virtue of them being Test-playing cricketing nations. Because both are tiny countries, the likelihood of finding three stadiums in close proximity to each other could be high, I felt.
As I figured, Bangladesh had four Active International Cricket Stadiums with floodlights i.e. with the provision to hold a match at the preferred evening hours. Unfortunately, no combination of three venues fell within the two-hour drive-time window here either. The best option was a two-venue pairing of Dhaka and Fatullah (both are part of the Dhaka administrative division). The other two venues - Chittagong and Sylhet respectively, are between 4-6 hours driving-time away from Dhaka.
By virtue of being one of the world's most densely populated countries, I felt BCCI would have been very reluctant to consider Bangladesh even if it fulfilled the proximity criteria.
With bated breath, I proceeded to analysing the prospects of playing IPL in Sri Lanka. This island country also has four Active International Cricket Stadiums with Floodlights as of today.
Close! Although not exactly within the two-hours drive time window, the combination of Colombo, Pallekelle and Dambulla is a compelling proposition!
To finetune my analysis, I began to gather the total Coronavirus cases (cumulative) data as of today - 20th September 2020 - which I would use as my second (and final) parameter to compare how countries fared as potential hosts for IPL 2020. By linking this non-geospatial dataset to a positional variable - the coordinates of the Cricket Stadium - I could convert it into geospatial data, thereby rendering it analyzable on my Geographic Information System (GIS) software.
Unfortunately, cumulative Coronavirus cases aggregated at City-level were not available for all the cricket venues. As a result, I decided to go macro with my aggregation (Administrative Region-wise). This is what I could gather eventually-
India - aggregated at State-Level
Bangladesh - aggregated at Division-Level
Sri Lanka - aggregated at Country-Level
UAE - aggregated at Country-Level
Subsequently, I estimated the Total cumulative Coronavirus cases that I would tag to a stadium from the population share of the city that houses the stadium to the overall population of the Administrative Region. For example, if Maharashtra state of India has 100 cumulative Coronavirus cases till date and Pune city within (home to the MCA International Cricket Stadium) has 20% of the total population in Maharashtra, then I've assumed that Pune has 20 cumulative Coronavirus cases detected till date which I will map to the MCA Stadium in the GIS software.
The final output across all the venues is depicted below-
What can you infer? I can tell you I was left surprised when I interpreted it for the first time.
While the Total cumulative Coronavirus cases in the UAE is relatively less at 85,000, as a percentage of its population, the figure is actually very high - nearly 1 person has been infected, currently or previously, out of every 100. As a matter of fact, the whole of Eastern India, Bangladesh and Srilanka fares better than the UAE on this parameter (one can argue, and not unreasonably so, that the statistics for India are understated due to the low rate of testing, under-reporting of data etc.).
What I was really keen to see how the Mumbai(2)-Pune(1) combination fared - unfortunately, it fared even worse than UAE as is evident from its darker shade of red in Figure 8 above.
That being said, the combination of Dehradun, Dharamshala and Mohali was the most appealing alternative from the virus cases standpoint. However, I understand that the Himalayan foothills would be a difficult terrain to navigate, especially at night once the matches conclude and even more so if one considers that foggy Winter is just around the corner. The three stadiums in the state of Uttar Pradesh (Delhi, Lucknow and Kanpur) are a better combination in terms of proximity and not very far off in terms of virus cases either, but I can imagine why they would not be considered suitable to host the IPL - due to the state's extremely high population density which is nearly three times the national average (which in itself is very high). This exact reason is why even Bangladesh would not cut it even though its cumulative cases to population is (surprisingly) low, especially if one compares it to UAE.
Which leaves me with Sri Lanka once again...
The Total cumulative Coronavirus cases in Sri Lanka is quite low - 3287 - as of today (active cases are a mere 186). As a percentage of the country's population, this is a mere 0.02%. Additionally, Sri Lanka is blessed with a pristine terrain disconnected from continental landmass. Suitable accommodation too shouldn't be a problem as the country is a popular global tourism destination. Moreover, winter is the best season to hold the matches in this highly tropical country. With an attractive INR/LKR exchange rate of 1/2.52 (costs are crucial) - the country of Sri Lanka with the venue trio of Dambulla, Pallekelle and Colombo seems a very compelling alternative to me - even better than UAE.
Sri Lanka actually even offered to host the IPL way back in April this year. So why didn't BCCI choose to accept it? In my opinion, it is likely due to-
a) Charges of Corruption against the Sri Lankan Cricket Board, and
b) Security Threat due to recent Terrorism incident
How did you find this exploratory study?
The methodology can be refined further if one wants to do a more meaningful analysis. Parameters such as Active Coronavirus cases, Projected rise in cases, Quality of Hotels in the vicinity, Location-wise Costs, Weather Forecasts can be taken into consideration.
One insight which I gained through this study was that it is beneficial to have sporting venues located in close proximity to each other. After all, it would help in organizing large competitions and global tournaments such as IPL without all the logistics hassles. No wonder, extravagant Villages are built to hold virtually the entirety of the world's leading international sporting events - the Olympic Games.
This is in stark contrast to India where each state builds one or two Cricket Stadiums to appease the electoral base and where any tournament spans across the length and breadth of the country. This dispersed format holds true for even other sporting tournaments and I feel that from a time, comfort and expense perspective, it just doesn't make any sense to expose world-class athletes and the entire sporting and media contingent to unnecessary travel. Refer this article posted on CNN which highlights the benefits of having a compact Sporting Tournament.
2025 update: I was happy to know that the entirety of the Hockey India League 2024-25 was being held at the magnificent, newly constructed Birsa Munda international hockey stadium in Rourkela.
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