Cricket’s showpiece domestic tournament was due to begin on March 29 but the killer bug forced that to be delayed until April 15.
And reports in India say there will likely be further delays to the start of the T20 extravaganza.
Indian outlet IANS quote an Indian board source as saying: “The latest we can wait is till the end of April.
“If the first game isn’t played by the first week of May then it will be almost impossible to have the league this year.
“Even if we have to wait till end of April to follow all the procedures, we can take a cue from the South Africa edition and conduct the league successfully.
“If you remember, that was the shortest IPL with 59 games played over 37 days and we can do the same. But certain measures will have to be taken.”
A conference call is set to take place with all team owners on Tuesday to discuss this year’s competition.
The 60-game showpiece was set to begin on Sunday with a rematch of last year’s final between Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings.
Now tournament officials face the possibility of having to reduce the number of games or truncate the schedule.
The world is struggling to contain the coronavirus pandemic and India is no different.
The country has now reported 396 cases of the virus and was placed into a 14-hour stay-at-home lockdown in a bid to test it’s preparedness.
It had been reported last week that the BCCI could look to delay the competition until later in the summer and play it in the July-September window.
And officials are also open to hosting the competition overseas – like the 2009 edition, which was held in South Africa – depending on the coronavirus situation abroad.
