CSA will deal with no IPL because it was not expected – Lorgat
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced on Wednesday that this year’s IPL would begin in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on April 16, before moving to India from May 1, with Bangladesh on standby should the elections in India not allow them to host it until later that month.
The announcement put to an end speculation that South Africa would host some of the tournament, having successfully staged the entire 2009 event.
“We weren’t surprised at all by the BCCI announcement, they want to play the tournament close to home. We were involved in discussions all along and we were informed of the decision before it went public. It made sense to have the first 16 games in the UAE, if they needed longer outside India then maybe we would have featured,” Lorgat said on Thursday.
“But we never had any plans for the IPL in our forecasts. It would have been a windfall, but it’s something we hadn’t bargained for. If it had come here, we would have embraced it, but equally we can deal with it not coming here. It’s their tournament and we respect their choice.”
With Lorgat and CSA having a well-publicised falling out with the BCCI last year and India, Australia and England staging a virtual coup to take control of the International Cricket Council (ICC), there have been fears that South African cricket would be sidelined.
But Lorgat revealed there has been a rush of activity in negotiations with other boards that would see more Test cricket being played here.
“We are very keen to play four-Test series against Australia and we’ve gone some way to agreeing to that, although it’s dependent on the calendar. If we can fit it in, then we will do that.
“And we are talking to England and have agreed in principle to play a five-Test series in 2015/16. So we’ve already achieved a lot working together since the original ICC proposal, which has already been changed considerably,” Lorgat said.
The CEO also denied reports from India that CSA had refused to stage only part of the IPL, wanting the whole tournament or nothing.
“To say we made demands like that is totally untrue and the amounts of money that we were reported to have wanted have also been exaggerated,” Lorgat said.