Visakhapatnam to be common main venue for Mumbai Indians and Rising Pune Supergiants
Kings XI Punjab to play all their home matches at Mohali
Ending days of speculation, the IPL Governing Council announced on Friday that the Eliminator and second Qualifier in the ninth Indian Premier league will be played at the Ferozshah Kotla stadium in Delhi instead of Eden Gardens.
The ILP GC also decided to have Visakhapatnam as the common main venue for Mumbai Indians and Rising Pune Supergiants, in the wake of the Supreme Court dismissing the plea of the Maharashtra and Mumbai Cricket Associations against the Bombay high court order directing shifting of IPL matches outside the drought-hit state.
Kings XI Punjab will play all their home matches at Mohali and not Dharamsala.
Kolkata’s Eden Gardens was earlier slated to host the high-profile Eliminator and second Qualifier.
"The main reason to shift one of the qualifiers and eliminator from Eden Gardens is that the time duration is too short between the last home match of KKR, scheduled for May 22, and the qualifier. It would be difficult to make logistical arrangements," IPL chairman Rajeev Shukla said, after the Governing Council’s meeting.
Speaking about the reason behind not opting for Jaipur as an alternate venue, Shukla attributed it to the PIL, the hearing of which is scheduled for May 3.
"We wanted to have matches at in Jaipur and were getting lots of support from state government, but since next hearing of PIL is on May 3 we would have only got five days to arrange the matches. That could have created logistical problems," Shukla said.
While the Eliminator is scheduled for May 25, the second Qualifier will be held on May 27.
Delhi and District Cricket Association vice-president C K Khanna, who is also a vice-president in the BCCI, welcomed the IPL GC's move to allot the high profile matches to Kotla.
The Bombay high court had on April 13 ordered the shifting of all IPL matches scheduled in Maharashtra after April 30 to other states in view of the severe drought in some parts of the state.
