Why BCCI favours UAE over S Africa?

With the announcement of the IPL dates and venues, the rumours - doing rounds for a month now - about the hosting of the seventh edition of the cash-rich event have come to a halt.

Many stories were floating in the media, some rumour mongers even suggested that Pakistan might be asked to host the annual event, while some favoured Sri Lanka and Bangladesh to host the IPL extravaganza.

Now it is clear that the event's first leg will be held in the UAE ( United Arab Emirates) at three different stadiums in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah. The UAE will host the first 16 matches from April 16 to April 30, following which the tournament will come back to India or may be shifted to Bangladesh from May 1 to May 12, if India's home ministry does not allow the event to take place here due to security reasons.

The big question of the day is why South Africa missed the bus this time around, despite successfully hosting the event in 2009, the second year after the inception of the IPL T20?

The world's richest cricket board applied its brain and preferred UAE over South Africa.

There may be several reasons but the board and sponsors might have chosen UAE primarily due to similar time zone. Weather would also be as good/bad as here back home. The atmosphere and pitches of the place would be similar, hence no franchise could complain about this too.

We had witnessed empty stands in 2009 when South Africa played host. If UAE plays host, in that case migrant working population here is more in comparison to any other parts of the world, we may see more fans occupying the seats during this first leg of the tournament. Organisers too hope that a large population of expats in UAE would help boost revenue from gate receipts which would compensate them partly. Also UAE is not very far from India, local fans can also visit and witness their favourite team or player's matches. This also may have helped BCCI to reach to this decision.

Most importantly, the cost of hosting IPL 7 in South Africa would have been huge in comparison to the UAE. According to an unconfirmed reports, Cricket South Africa was demanding in surplus of Rs 150 crore or more to host the event, while staging the event in UAE to cost less than half of the amount, i.e. around Rs 60 crore.

1st leg in UAE	From April 16 to 30
2nd leg in Dhaka or India	From May 1 to 12
3rd leg in India	From May 13 to June 1

Return to Sharjah: The moment one hear Sharjah, the memories of Javed Miandad's last ball six comes to mind. Every Indian and Pakistani want to see their teams locking horns at the ground. Sharjah was one of the favourite grounds till 2000, but after the infamous 2000 match-fixing scandal, India stopped playing there.

However, it is learnt that the UAE authorities have assured BCCI cooperation in keeping bookies at bay.

This time around though fans will miss the Pakistani players as they won't be featuring in the event.

India last played their ODI match at Sharjah Cricket Association Stadium on October 29, 2000 against Sri Lanka. India scored one of the lowest total (54) in the match, barring Robin Singh, no other batsman (including Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar) managed to touch the double figure. On the other hand Sri Lanka's Sanath Jayasuriya scored 189 and their bowler Chaminda Vaas grabbed five crucial wickets to win the match and the 2000/01 Coca-Cola Champions Trophy.