Former India captain and Hyderabad Cricket Association president Mohammed Azharuddin on Sunday offered the state body’s facilities to the BCCI to host the upcoming IPL matches in case the games are shifted out of Covid-hit Mumbai.

The BCCI has decided to keep Indore and Hyderabad as stand by venues for the tournament beginning on April 9 following a massive surge in Covid-19 cases in Maharashtra. Mumbai is scheduled to host 10 games.

The move came after somegroundsmen of the Wankhede Stadium and a few event managers had tested positive for the deadly virus,

“In these difficult times there is all the more reasons for us to stand by each other. Hyderabad Cricket Association would like to offer its facilities to @BCCI to ensure that IPL2021 is conducted in safe and secure venues,” Azharuddin wrote on his twitter handle.

On Saturday, however, BCCI president Sourav Ganguly had told The Telegraph that “The IPL matches will be held in Mumbai. Once you are in a bubble nothing happens. Even in the UAE last season, there were a few such incidents in the lead-up to the event but once the tournament started everything was fine.”