CHENNAI: Good news for all those Royal Challengers Bengaluru fans. After days of speculations and dilly-dallying, the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) on Tuesday confirmed that it will return to the M Chinnaswamy Stadium for the 2026 IPL season. The defending champions will play five home matches in Bengaluru and two home games at the Shahi Veer Narayan Singh stadium in Raipur.
“After detailed discussions and completing the necessary due process around permissions, we are pleased to confirm that RCB will play five matches in Bengaluru. We sincerely thank the Government of Karnataka, the KSCA, and the Karnataka Police for their support in making this possible,” RCB CEO Rajesh Menon said in a statement. It will come as a huge relief for the supporters as their premier venue will be hosting the event.
The Karnataka State Cricket Association's (KSCA) new managing committee led by president and former cricketer Venkatesh Prasad had sought for conditional approval from the state government to host International matches. The KSCA have started maintaining the ground properly after state government's conditional approval in January. The ground had hosted some state-level age group cricket but not big games.
Incidentally, the KSCA, at 3.20pm on Tuesday announced a press conference scheduled at 7.00pm, to provide the latest update regarding hosting IPL matches. Hours later, the defending champions announced that they will return to the fabled venue.
In June last year, a stampede in the victory parade of RCB's IPL title win at the premises of the stadium occured, where 11 lives were lost.
A month later, the one-man commission led by retired judge Michael D'Cunha found that the stadium is "unsuitable and unsafe for mass gatherings.
More to follow..
