New Delhi, Apr 5 (IANS): Domestic badminton tournaments that were scheduled to be held in April and May have been postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Badminton Association of India (BAI) said in a statement on Monday.

"With the exponential rise in the number of COVID+ cases across the country, BAI President Himanta Biswa has decided to postpone all the upcoming domestic tournaments starting with B'lor (April 18-25) followed by junior & sub-junior in H'yd in May," the BAI said.

According to the calendar that the BAI released on March 26, the All Indian Senior Ranking tournament was scheduled to be held in Bengaluru from April 18 to 25.

"We have decided to postpone all senior, junior and sub-junior tournaments that were to be held in April and May," BAI general secretary Ajay Kumar Singhania told IANS.

Apart from the senior ranking tournament, qualifiers and main draws of the junior and sub-junior tournaments were scheduled to be held in Hyderabad, Mysuru and Bengaluru in May.

The Indian Open is scheduled to be held from May 11 to 16 in New Delhi and the BAI has not yet indicated if the Super 500 tournament has been affected in any way due to the surge of Covid-19 cases in the country.

India is currently going through a second Covid-19 wave. As per Crisil's report, the past week (March 29 - April 4), saw daily cases shooting up from 68,000 to over 1 lakh -- a whopping 52 per cent increase.