The Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) is counting its losses following the indefinite pause on this year’s IPL.

CAB had put in place a bio-bubble and made all other necessary arrangements, including a separate isolation centre, for the Calcutta leg of the T20 tournament. The arrangements had met with approval from a BCCI recce team.

The groundsmen, too, had entered the bubble at the start of this week.

Beginning from May 9, Eden Gardens was supposed to stage as many as 10 matches. All state associations get Rs 1 crore for each of the IPL matches staged, but with the decision that the Board has been forced to take, CAB along with its Karnataka counterpart — Karnataka State Cricket Association — would be incurring a big amount of loss.

The Chinnaswamy stadium in Bangalore was to have hosted the third leg of the league matches along with the Eden.

“We would have got a total of Rs 10 crore had the matches gone on as per schedule.

And our profit would’ve been around Rs 8 crore or so after the expenses related to staging those matches.

“Now that the matches won’t be held and since we also don’t know what lies ahead, the profit we could’ve had will turn into a loss,” said CAB treasurer Debasish Ganguly.

Besides, the CAB has also incurred an expenditure of around Rs 60-70 lakh to get the Eden ready for the IPL matches. “We’re also yet to receive the compensation for the India-South Africa ODI (supposed to have been held in March last year) that got cancelled also because of Covid-19. The amount works out to around Rs 57 lakh.

“Hopefully, there won’t be much delay in getting the compensation for the South Africa ODI,” treasurer Ganguly added.

The association, though, will be asking for a reimbursement from the Board regarding these IPL matches. “We don’t know what others will do, but we would be asking for a reimbursement,” CAB president Avishek Dalmiya told The Telegraph.

“We’ll send the request once all formalities with our stakeholders and the audit are completed.”

With Sourav Ganguly, also a former CAB chief, at BCCI’s helm, the association has reasons to feel hopeful in terms of being compensated.

The loss aside, the CAB also had plans of organising a preparatory tournament (comprising only four-day matches) which could have begun from this month itself had the situation not worsened.

“If the scenario improves some weeks later, we’ll again start thinking about it,” Dalmiya said.

KSCA stance

The KSCA, however, is yet to decide whether to ask for reimbursement from the BCCI. “We still hope the BCCI will reschedule the matches.

“But whether we’ll seek compensation is something that’s to be decided internally,” KSCA treasurer Vinay Mruthyunjaya said.