IPL 2026 Venue Chaos: RCB, RR face deadline to finalise new home grounds; Pune among options
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "IPL 2026 Venue Chaos: RCB, RR face deadline to finalise new home grounds; Pune among options")
IPL 2026 Venue Chaos RCB, RR face deadline to finalise new home grounds Photograph: (AFP)
Even though Pune emerge as the top option for both teams, neither has been able to fix it as the schedule announcement deadline approaches.
The Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and Rajasthan Royals (RR) are yet to finalise their home venues for IPL 2026, which starts in exactly 45 days from Wednesday (Feb 11) on March 26, facing crises over choosing their respective state grounds in Jaipur and Bengaluru, respectively. Even though Pune emerge as the top option for both teams, neither has been able to fix it as the schedule announcement deadline approaches.
A Cricbuzz report claims that after ending its search for a new home venue for the upcoming IPL season, RR could well and truly return to playing at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur. Although neither the state board nor the BCCI have confirmed this development, the report states that it looks likely to happen. RR, however, have a fallback option in Pune, which again, hasn’t been worked on yet.
The doubts continued to linger since the stadium’s readiness in time for the showpiece event remained uncertain. Knowing that the Rajasthan Cricket Board has less than seven weeks to sort out the facilities, including the amenities, the RR management must be sweating over the venue crisis.
Meanwhile, should Rajasthan pick Jaipur as its home venue, they will at least play four of the seven home matches this season there, with the remaining three, per the earlier plan, will be staged in Guwahati. The Royals, however, are believed to have held closed-door discussions with the Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA) regarding Pune as an alternative.
Mumbai Indians deny refusing RCB
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The Mumbai Indians (MI) management has denied reports of rejecting RCB’s request to consider Navi Mumbai’s DY Patil as a second home venue option. They, however, have urged the RCB management to explore other options first, including Indore, Raipur, Visakhapatnam and Cuttack - the cities that have hosted IPL games earlier, with Thiruvananthapuram also added to it.
Considering that M Chinnaswamy hosting RCB’s home matches remains highly unlikely as of now, despite several efforts from the KCA, the RCB is reported to have written to MI seeking an opportunity to use DY Patil as a temporary option for just this season.
However, MI has cleared (it to RCB) about bleak chances of that happening, with the reports of Raipur in Chhattisgarh closing in on becoming RCB’s safer option having increased.
IPL 2026 will take place from March 26 to May 31 this year.
