The final of the Indian Premier League scheduled for May 12 has been moved to the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad from Chennai after the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association failed to acquire approval from the local government to reopen three stands at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, PTI reported on Monday.
The closure of stands I, J and K, with a combined capacity of 12,000, had robbed Chennai of matches during the 2016 Twenty20 World Cup. Women’s matches – that were not televised – were played in Chennai then. The last time the stands had been opened was during the India-Australia Test match in 2013.
“We had to shift the matches from Chennai to Hyderabad after TNCA intimated us that they have not procured the requisite permission to open the three stands I, J and K,” PTI quoted Vinod Rai, the chairman of the committee of administrators that manages the day-to-day activities of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, as saying.
“Since the gate sales of the knockout matches is BCCI’s prerogative, we had to take a call. We would be having two knockout matches in Vizag (Visakhapatnam),” he added.
The eliminator on May 8 and qualifier 2 two days are the matches shifted to Visakhapatnam.
Chennai Super Kings chief executive officer Kasi Viswanathan, who learnt about the development after landing from Bengaluru in the evening, expressed his disappointment at the decision.
“There are a lot of legal issues and we couldn’t obtain permission from the government to open the stands. The renovation also couldn’t happen due to a lot of factors,” he said.
However, CSK will get to play at home if it finishes the league first or second.
Meanwhile, he first three-team mini women’s IPL will be held from May 6-10 in Jaipur with a new team Velocity being added to the existing Trailblazers and Supernovas.
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