Even though the 13th edition of the Indian Premier League is still under a huge cloud, England cricketers Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler are keeping themselves ready, should the prospect of playing the tournament, even a truncated version of it, emerge in the near future.
Stokes and Buttler are both part of the Rajasthan Royals outfit. The 2020 IPL was set to begin on March 29, before being postponed to April 15. Now, even that looks to be an unlikely start date, with India’s government imposing a three-week nationwide lockdown that only ends on April 14. There is also the possibility that the lockdown could be further extended, depending on how the situation in the country develops over the next couple of weeks.
Buttler acknowledged that things seem uncertain at the moment, but didn’t rule out a change in the positive direction.”It’s very hard to see this [situation] changing in the immediate future, so I don’t see that as a possibility at the moment,” he said. “But as we know, things can hopefully change for the positive quickly as well.
“That’s such a massive tournament for world cricket, so hopefully it becomes a situation where some of it [can be played] or it can become a shortened tournament, or something can go ahead.”
