As per reports, Virat Kohli, Steve Smith, Gautam Gambhir, R Ashwin, Dinesh Karthik and David Warner will not be attending the opening ceremony of the IPL 2018, which is scheduled to happen at Wankhede, Mumbai on April 7. Only MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma will be seen at the opening event as their teams will be contesting with each other on the next day.

A source from the BCCI told a newspaper, " We’ve done away with holding the opening ceremony a day in advance. Four teams play their matches on April 8 (Kings XI Punjab play the Delhi Daredevils in Mohali at 4 pm, while the Kolkata Knight Riders take on Royal Challengers Bangalore at 8 pm). The game in Mohali was supposed to have taken place in Delhi earlier before the schedule was changed. It’s a 4 pm game, and we can’t expect the captains of those teams to fly in the evening to Delhi and undertake a road trip in the night, or on the morning of the match."

It is said that the blunder happened because due to lack of homework by the IPL officials. When the newspaper contacted the acting president CK Khanna said:”We are aware that there are some logistical issues that have cropped up. It will be sorted at the earliest. I think captains will be called a day earlier and their portion will be shot and shown during the opening ceremony.”

All the eight skippers will be in the city on April 6,  for the pre-IPL meeting of captains. It is said that the BCCI will will record the ‘Spirit of Cricket’ pledge from the skippers, undertaken every year, and play it out in the opening ceremony the next day.

 

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 22, 2018 12:07 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).