Royal Challengers Bengaluru is reluctant to play home matches at M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, points out ‘grey areas’ at home venue

For the past year, the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) has been walking on a tight rope since the June 4 stampede. The reigning IPL champions will not be playing their home games at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium due to the massive renovation for infrastructural development. Apart from a few domestic games, including the Thimmappiah Memorial Trophy, the stadium is yet to host a tier-1 cricket match. Although the Karnatak Cricket Association (KCA) has kept the doors open for RCB to play at the venue, the franchise has been reluctant to give this proposal a green light, pointing out some ‘grey areas’ that need consideration.

Recently, the KCA president, Venkatesh Prasad, spoke to the media about the steps taken to meet the conditional nod for hosting RCB’s home games at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, which are underway. But the team has shown “apprehension” about playing the home games in the city.

To this, RCB has released a statement expressing its specific concern.

“While our desire is always to play at our home ground, in front of our ardent fans, we want to be thorough in our commitment to understand further the conditions applicable to host matches here and the measures taken to ensure fans’ safety protocols are met,” RCB stated.

“From our preliminary conversations, there are still a few grey areas that need to be looked into,” the franchise added.

Following a horrifying stampede outside the stadium, which resulted in 11 deaths and 50 being injured, a commission led by Justice John Michael D'Cunha found the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium "unsafe for large-scale events." The report also highlighted that the stadium built in 1974 is among the older venues doesn’t have the provisions for "purpose-built queuing and circulation areas separated from public roads, sufficient entry and exit gates to manage mass ingress and egress, integrated access to public transport and nearby tourist hubs, comprehensive emergency evacuation plans in line with global safety norms and adequate parking and drop-off facilities to accommodate large volumes of attendees."

While the Chinnaswamy still waits for conditional approval, RCB is eyeing umbai DY Patil Stadium and Raipur as its home turf. Also, a new stadium on the outskirts of Karnataka (Surya City, Bommasandra) is under development, which has a capacity of around 80,000. The cost for the stadium is set to be around ₹2,350 crores, which can serve RCB’s long-term needs.