KABUL (Pajhwok): The Indian cricket board has suspended the Indian Premier League (IPL), the country’s premier T20 tournament, amid rising tensions with Pakistan, Reuters reported on Friday, citing a source familiar with the situation.
On Thursday, an IPL match was abandoned midway after hostilities flared in India’s border regions. Although the cricket board initially cited a power outage at the Dharamsala stadium as the cause of the disruption, the incident occurred against the backdrop of intensifying conflict.
The current IPL season began on March 22 and was scheduled to conclude with the final on May 25. Matches were being held across 13 venues nationwide.
However, amid the deteriorating security situation, the tournament has now been halted.
Reuters noted that IPL Chairman Arun Singh Dhumal and Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) Secretary Devajit Saikia did not respond to requests for comment.
Tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors escalated on Wednesday after India launched strikes on what it claimed were “terrorist infrastructure” sites in Pakistan, in retaliation for a deadly attack in Kashmir last month.
Pakistan and India have accused each other of launching drone attacks, with Pakistan’s defense minister warning that further retaliation is “increasingly certain.” Two days of intense clashes have reportedly killed nearly four dozen people.
Prior to India’s announcement, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) had already decided to relocate the remaining matches of the HBL Pakistan Super League (PSL) to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) due to the rising cross-border tensions.
In a statement released early Friday morning, the PCB said: “The PCB confirms that the remaining fixtures of the HBL PSL X have been shifted to the UAE. The exact schedule of matches, including dates and venues, will be shared in due course.”
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