By Hamed Chapman

London, (The Muslim News): Mayor of London Sadiq Khan remains hopeful of bringing Indian Premier League (IPL) fixtures to Lord’s or the Kia Oval in future as part of his ambitious plans to kick-start tourism in the city after the coronavirus pandemic.

”Just like American football is huge, we brought American football here in a deal for the next two years,” said Khan, who also brought the US major baseball league to the British capital.

“Similarly, IPL is big; it’s one of the biggest watched sports in the world, the biggest leagues in the world. And I want to bang the drum for London going forward as we’ve been doing for the last five years,” he told Editor of The Muslim News, Ahmed J Versi.

The Twenty20 cricket league, which is contested by eight teams based out of eight different Indian cities, is widely regarded as the biggest domestic competition in world cricket, attracting so many top players from virtually every country that plays the game.

“With respect to the Pakistan Super League, it is great to see Pakistan having cricket taking place in Pakistan again, it’s not as big as the IPL. Maybe in the future we may talk about other smaller league,” the Mayor also said when he was asked why he was’t inviting the IPL too.

Standing for re-election in May, he said that he was also “banging the drum for investment, banging the drum for tourism and banging the drum for businesses as well” and was why he was banging the drum for staging IPL games.

[Photo of IPL game by Ashwin John/Creative Commons]