BENGALURU: The Karnataka State Cricket Association is awaiting the Standard Operating Procedures for the bio bubble from the Board of Control for Cricket in India before they finalise the venues for the Bengaluru leg of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, scheduled from January 10.
As of now, they have zoomed in on three grounds in Alur (1, 2 and 3), housed inside the same premises. Just Cricket Ground and M Chinnaswamy Stadium have also regularly hosted domestic matches in the past too.
The three venues, expected to be finalised in the coming days, will host a total of 15 Elite A group matches.
Besides Karnataka, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Railways, Tripura and Jammu and Kashmir will play their matches in the city. All these teams have to report at Bengaluru on or before January 2. They will be tested three times for Covid-19 before they can resume practice on January 8 and 9.
"We have not taken the final decision as far as the venues are concerned, but we are mostly looking at Alur," KSCA secretary Santosh Menon told The New Indian Express. "Once we get the SOPs from the BCCI, then we will know exactly how many teams can stay in a hotel and etc. We will have to take the call accordingly. We are awaiting for BCCI to give us clear cut directions, which they have not."
Also, there is no clarity about the medical team - if the KSCA is responsible for setting it up or the BCCI will make some arrangements.
When it comes to the domestic T20, many state bodies have announced their probables, and KSCA too is set to announce the list in the coming days. The state players have been quite busy, featuring in the recently concluded 50-overs YSR Memorial Trophy, which witnessed the likes of Karun Nair and Abhimanyu Mithun among others in action. Currently, several players are featuring in the ongoing KSCA T20 tournament.
Kolkata, Vadodara, Indore, Mumbai and Chennai are the other cities where the tournament will be held.