The fourth edition of the Maharaja Trophy KSCA T20 was on Thursday shifted to Mysuru from Bengaluru and will be held as a closed-door event.
The tournament was scheduled to be played at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium from August 11 to 28, but the failure to obtain a clearance certificate from the city police forced the association to shift the matches to the Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar Cricket Stadium in Mysuru.
There will not be any change in the original schedule.
It's learnt that police did not issue the clearance certificate because of the ongoing probe into the June 4 stampede near the Chinnaswamy Stadium that left 11 fans dead and scores of others injured during the IPL victory celebrations of Royal Challengers Bengaluru.
It may be recalled that the Justice John Michael D'Cunha Commission, appointed by the Karnataka Government, had last week deemed the Chinnaswamy Stadium "unsuitable and unsafe for mass gathering." The Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) officials also pondered over staging the tournament at the Alur grounds on the outskirts of the city, but the absence of floodlights and spectator seating thwarted the plans.
It's not yet clear when the Chinnaswamy Stadium will get to host a match as the season-opening Duleep Trophy will be played at the BCCI Centre of Excellence grounds, while the venue is also set to host a few matches in the upcoming ICC Women's 50-over World Cup.
This report includes content sourced from Press Trust of India (PTI), edited for clarity and context.
