CHENNAI: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced that the Indian Premier League (IPL), the showpiece of the Indian cricket season these days, will be hosted by Ahmedabad for a fourth time in six years. As per convention, the M Chinnaswamy Stadium was scheduled to host it as RCB were the defending champions. It was what the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) had also believed when they made it public in a press conference before the beginning of the league. But the BCCI, who had said a few days ago that nothing was decided yet, formally communicated their decision in a press release on Wednesday.
"The season will conclude with the final on May 31 at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad..." the release said. "Bengaluru was originally designated to host the Final. However, owing to certain requirements from the local association and authorities that were beyond the scope of BCCI's established guidelines and protocols, the venue has been shifted and reassigned."
Curiously, KSCA weren't kept in the loop by the BCCI before their release. KSCA, in a subsequent press release, said they 'were disappointed'. "At the outset, KSCA expresses its disappointment that the IPL Playoff matches have been allotted to other centres," said Vinay Mruthyunjaya, KSCA's official spokesperson. KSCA president Venkatesh Prasad was in touch with the BCCI in this regard and had also formally conveyed KSCA's preparedness, willingness, and keen interest in hosting the IPL Playoffs at the Chinnaswamy Stadium."
In another departure, the BCCI decided that Ahmedabad will host only the final. Three of the four encounters in the next phase of the competition would be hosted in Dharamsala and New Chandigarh. The BCCI didn't explain why they took this step. "Owing to certain operational and logistical considerations, the TATA IPL 2026 Playoffs will be conducted across three venues this season as a special case," they said.
Ever since the new Stadium in Ahmedabad was open for cricket in 2021, it has kept getting big matches. Most recently, it hosted the T20 World Cup final in March. Because of its increased capacity, there's a certain logic to hosting some of the biggest matches. More footfalls equals more revenue. This could be one of the reasons why the BCCI may have decided to move the venue to Ahmedabad even though Gujarat Titans, the local franchise, didn't win the 2025 edition of the league.
Reading between the lines, the BCCI and the local association may have also reached an impasse with respect to giving out complimentary tickets for some elected policy-makers. However, DK Shivakumar, while speaking to reporters on Wednesday, made it clear there was no clear link between the two. "Ahmedabad has a bigger stadium and can accommodate more spectators," he said. "The decision to shift the IPL final could have been taken for that reason. It has nothing to do with the distribution of free tickets to MLAs." However, Shivakumar promised to respond to the BCCI if the venue was changed for 'ticket-related issues'.
This issue has once again thrown a light on how and why Ahmedabad keeps getting the biggest matches and some of them out of turn. While the Titans won the league in 2022 and promptly hosted the final in 2023, it also got to host the final in 2022 and 2025 as well. In 2025, the BCCI moved the final from Kolkata to Ahmedabad citing bad weather conditions. Likewise, there was some logic to hosting the 2022 final there as the season was still being held under specific Covid-related protocols (it wasn't held under home-away format).
At some level, you want to host the final in a venue with over 100,000 seats (in comparison Bengaluru, and most other Indian stadia, houses between 30 and 40000). But, if that's now the unofficial policy, the BCCI should come out and say so rather than doing this with less than a month to go for the showpiece.
