The next season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) will be played in 2026, before which a player auction will be held in Abu Dhabi on December 16. All the fans are eagerly waiting for the next season of IPL, the biggest reason for which is Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, whose brilliance will be seen in the T20 format.
Where will RCB play their home matches in IPL 2026?
The Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) won the IPL 2025 title, after which everyone’s eyes will be on whether they will be able to defend their title or not. Apart from this, a big update has come regarding whether the RCB team will be able to play matches at its home ground, M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru or not.
After the Royal Challengers Bangalore team won the IPL 2025 title, fans in Bengaluru celebrated wildly. A victory parade was scheduled to take place at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium after the RCB team arrived with the trophy. However, a stampede broke out due to the larger-than-expected turnout, resulting in deaths and injuries. Since then, no major matches have been played at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.
Some matches of the 2025 Women’s ODI World Cup were scheduled to be played there, but due to a lack of a No-Officer (NOC) certificate, the matches were later relocated to Navi Mumbai. Consequently, uncertainty persisted regarding the IPL 2026 matches, which has now been addressed by Karnataka State Government Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar.
Official statement
Karnataka State Government’s Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, after casting his vote in the election for the post of President of Karnataka State Cricket Association, according to news report, in response to the question asked about hosting IPL matches at M Chinnaswamy, said, “I myself am a big fan of cricket. We will ensure that an accident like the stampede that happened in Karnataka does not happen again and cricket matches continue to be held at Chinnaswamy Stadium as before, which will also maintain the respect of Bengaluru. We will not organize IPL matches anywhere else and all the matches will be played at Chinnaswamy Stadium only. This is a big honour for Bengaluru and Karnataka, which we will try our best to maintain.”