“No one even cares at this point,” lamented a Mumbai cricket fan after the 2026 Indian Premier League final was reassigned to the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. The ardent fans of the sport will now once again pack their bags and head to the familiar landscape for another top clash of the cricket tournament.
It’s the fourth time in five years, huh? The IPL final will be played in Ahmedabad. Traditionally the defending champions, in this year’s case Royal Challengers Bengaluru, have the privilege of hosting the summit clash.
However, in back-to-back years, that privilege was taken away from Eden Gardens, home of the 2024 champions Kolkata Knight Riders and of course RCB, who won the tournament in 2025.
The Indian Cricket Board has been very clear on why Bengal’s Chinnaswamy Stadium is not hosting the summit clash this year. BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia said in an interview that the board had labeled the behavior of Karnataka’s political class, which reportedly demanded 10,000 free tickets before a highly watched game.
This was on top of the 15 per cent allocation already provided by the BCCI to the state association hosting the match. With nearly 16,000 of the 40,000 tickets actually gone before public sale, the BCCI may have asked itself: why hand over such a marquee game to a venue that has repeatedly brought unwanted controversies into Indian cricket – from the run to the recurring ticket allocation chaos that resurfaced right at the start of IPL 2026?
And that’s fair enough. The BCCI has every right to rein in the state association if it feels that the board is being influenced by undue pressure. But then how does that justify taking the 2025 final away from Eden Gardens?
An iconic venue in Indian cricket, the final match at the Eden Gardens was withdrawn by the BCCI citing weather concerns. The Board said that rain is expected in Kolkata during the IPL final and to stay safe, they shifted the game to the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.
This is the same place in Ahmedabad where it is The 2023 final took two days to completemaking it a logistical nightmare for many traveling spectators.
Ironically, the weather in Kolkata held out on the day of the final in 2025, making the decision look tougher in hindsight.
“So tired of watching finals from the stadium. 2022. 2023 two finals. 2025. 2026 two finals,” tweeted user X on the day of the announcement.
“Despite being a proud Amdavadi. Despite being proud to have a grand venue like Narendra Modi Stadium in my city. I believe too many big matches are played here,” added another.
WHY DOES AHMEDABAD GET ALL CRICKET FINALS?
RCB won the IPL final in Ahmedabad last year (Reuters Photo)
Let’s say BCCI provides big games to only one stadium in the country.
Taking this as a baseline, India is not the first country to allocate its biggest matches to one venue.
Australia has the Melbourne Cricket Ground. England has Lord’s. And if we turn our attention to football, London’s Wembley Stadium has regularly hosted the biggest international matches over the years.
In a way, an association or a country tells the world: this is the consistency we offer to fans, home and away.
Another aspect is the capacity of the stadium. The Narendra Modi Stadium has a capacity of more than 1,00,000 spectators.
BCCI sources told IndiaToday.in that Ahmedabad has started to become the preferred destination as a large number of tickets can still be sold even after allotment of clearance to the host association and stakeholders.
There is also the matter of optics. Ahmedabad just looks more spectacular on TV. Aerial shots, packed stands and large-scale ceremonies help create the sense of mega-event that broadcasters and administrators naturally gravitate towards in the finale.
And perhaps therein lies Ahmedabad’s real strength. It is no longer just a cricket stadium, but increasingly the starting stage for India’s biggest cricket spectacles.
IS IT CORRECT VERSUS THE REST OF STADIUMS IN INDIA?
Ahmedabad may not yet carry the generational emotions and history of places like Eden Gardens, Wankhede or Chepauk.
And these places that don’t get any finals obviously don’t sit well with the fans.
In recent years, frustration has also been directed at the BCCI for not adequately compensating these centers with other marquee matches. If the board wants Ahmedabad to host the biggest match for whatever reason, then another string of high-profile matches should at least rotate around the country’s major stadiums.
However, even this should not absolve the BCCI of its double standards.
The board has not allocated the Women’s World Cup matches to centers like Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai, saying it wants to shift the games to smaller centres.
But when it comes to Men’s T20 World Cup, Chennai and Delhi did not get a single semi-final. And perhaps it outlines the frustration of associations.
IPL WAS BUILT ON CITY IDENTITY
One of the reasons the IPL became such a massive cultural force in India was that it never really felt neutral. Chennai belonged to Chepauk. Bombay belonged to the Wankhede. Eden Gardens beat the pulse of Kolkata while Bengaluru turned the Chinnaswamy Stadium into an annual carnival.
The league was built on geography just like cricket.
Fans didn’t just support teams, they supported cities, local cultures and hometowns that slowly became extensions of the franchises themselves. Part of this ecosystem was the IPL finals traveling across the country. This allowed different fan bases to feel ownership over the league’s biggest night.
And perhaps this is where some of the discomfort around Ahmedabad stems from. If every major game begins to gravitate towards one center, the tournament slowly risks losing some of its regional structure.
And in a diverse country like India, point A to point B is not more than a three-hour drive away. Maybe it’s much worse when you don’t get around to the festival of cricket for a long time.
And it’s about time the BCCI looked into it. It is fine if India has fixed centers for big international games, but a competition like IPL should remain pan-Indian.
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Issued by:
Akshay Ramesh
Published on:
May 11, 2026 1:43 PM IST
