5 Tournaments/bilateral series that could prove hindrance to BCCI to stage IPL 2021 in September-October window

3. England tour of Pakistan

In November last year, ECB and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) together confirmed that England will be touring Pakistan for the first time since 2005. It will certainly be a historic tour as no major country apart from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka has played cricket in Pakistan since the terrorist attack on the Lankan team in 2009.

The tour is also ECB’s return of gratitude for Pakistan in a way, as the Men in Green travelled England when the pandemic situation was worse last year. Though the matches were played behind closed doors, ECB could recover and avoid huge losses with all matches of their home season going ahead without any hindrance.

As it stands, England and Pakistan will play two T20Is on October 14 and 15. But the tour could be preponed given the fact that the T20 World Cup will commence either in India or UAE around that period itself. This will lead to the series being played during the IPL. Simply put, if England players are to play the IPL, their tour of Bangladesh and Pakistan will either become low key or will be cancelled which doesn’t look a possibility right now.