Calling the decision to shift the IPL 2026 final from Bengaluru to Ahmedabad a “grave injustice” to Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) fans and Karnataka cricket, senior cricket writer Joseph Hoover accused the BCCI of acting arbitrarily and unfairly. He said the board should have openly declared its intention to host the final in Ahmedabad instead of blaming ticket demands from the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA).
The controversy erupted after the BCCI shifted the IPL 2026 final away from Bengaluru despite RCB winning the previous season and earning hosting rights under the IPL convention. The Federal spoke to Hoover about the row, the politics around ticket allocations, the growing dominance of Ahmedabad as a cricket venue, and the larger administrative issues within Karnataka cricket.
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What is your reaction to the BCCI shifting the IPL 2026 final from Bengaluru to Ahmedabad?
I would straight away go after the BCCI because if the BCCI wanted to host the IPL final in Ahmedabad, which they have been doing for the last few years, they could have simply done that. They did not need excuses, saying somebody wanted 10,000 tickets and that it was beyond their control.
First of all, the KSCA belongs to the people of Karnataka. It is the people of Karnataka who made the KSCA what it is today, just like fans in other centres built cricket there. So, for BCCI officials to come and say that Chinnaswamy Stadium cannot hold the match because of ticket demands is utter rubbish.
The BCCI is anyway run by the government and has all the control to do whatever it wants. So they should simply come out and say they are hosting it in Ahmedabad instead of creating excuses.
Besides losing the IPL final, Bengaluru was also denied a playoff match. Why should playoff matches only go to places like Dharamsala and New Chandigarh? There are established cricket centres like Eden Gardens, Wankhede (Mumbai) and Chepauk (Chennai). Why are those centres ignored?
This is not fair to cricket and not fair to local fans. Narendra Modi Stadium may have a capacity of 1,30,000, but that does not mean you take away the rights of the IPL winners. RCB won the IPL, so the choice should have been theirs.
IPL is club cricket. It is not a national tournament or a state tournament. It is a commercial product with franchises and players from everywhere. That is fine, but you cannot suddenly say the final is being shifted because someone demanded tickets.
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The BCCI said the KSCA wanted an additional 10,000 tickets. What do you make of that explanation?
I would again tell BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia and IPL chairman Arun Dhumal to be realistic and responsible when making statements.
Chinnaswamy Stadium has a capacity of around 32,000. Out of that, nearly 2,000 passes go to franchise sponsors. So effectively, you are left with around 30,000 tickets.
Under BCCI norms, the KSCA gets 15 per cent allocation, which comes to around 4,500 tickets for clubs and members. If they are now claiming the KSCA asked for 10,000 more tickets, that would mean the KSCA would end up taking away 14,500 tickets out of 30,000. That is simply unrealistic.
When you make public statements, you must be sensitive. You cannot hurt people’s sentiments just because you are in power. Everybody does not remain in power forever.
What has been done is a grave injustice to the people of Karnataka, RCB fans and the KSCA. The BCCI is blaming the KSCA publicly, and now the association itself does not know where to look.
You may have money, but where is the professionalism? Would Cricket Australia or the ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board) behave like this? They would stick to their commitments. You cannot change things according to whims and fancies.
Karnataka MLAs and MLCs demanding more passes have become a major issue this time. Is politics entering cricket more openly now?
Absolutely. The way I read it, this is politics.
For the last 18 years that IPL has been played at Chinnaswamy Stadium, passes have always been distributed to MLAs and MLCs. It has been the norm in the KSCA. Every MLA and MLC gets one pass, and ministers get two passes.
This has happened for years. So why suddenly make it an issue now?
Yes, there may have been demands for more tickets this year, but the KSCA adjusted by cutting other quotas. Why are we suddenly blaming politicians?
Every political party is involved — BJP, Congress, JD(S), everyone. Throwing mud at everybody now makes no sense.
The BCCI could simply have said they wanted to host the final in Ahmedabad. That would have been cleaner.
Ahmedabad will now host the IPL final for the fourth time in five years. What message does that send?
As long as the current people are in power, they will continue to do what they want. No association has the guts to take them on.
Everybody knows how cricket elections are decided and where the power lies. So what we are asking is simple: be humble and realistic.
Already, most major IPL matches, international games, World Cup finals and semifinals are happening in Ahmedabad. What about the centres that built Indian cricket culture?
Why should Mumbai lose out? Why should traditional centres be ignored?
Now, even Guwahati is getting a Test match because the BCCI secretary is from there. Dharamsala gets IPL matches because the IPL chairman is associated there. This cannot become a system where people in power take matches wherever they want.
Cricket should not be driven into this kind of situation.
You also said the KSCA itself shares some responsibility. Why?
When the Justice Lodha Committee reforms came in, the idea was that only cricket clubs should have voting rights.
But the KSCA authorities realised that if only cricket clubs voted, they would not remain in power. So they created sports centres and expanded the voter base to protect their vote bank.
Now those sports centres and clubhouse members also expect tickets and passes.
If the KSCA had restricted voting only to genuine cricket clubs, this entire problem may not have happened.
Today, if Karnataka cricket administration is in a mess, I would blame many office-bearers from the past. They created this situation.
Anil Kumble and Javagal Srinath came in and tried to clean things up, but they eventually became frustrated because of this culture and left.
What solution do you see going forward?
One possible solution is for the BCCI to say that sports centres will no longer have voting rights, and only cricket clubs can vote.
That would reduce the obligation on the KSCA to distribute tickets to various non-cricket groups.
Look at Tamil Nadu. The Tamil Nadu Cricket Association has only cricket clubs voting. They distribute tickets accordingly.
If the BCCI imposes a similar structure, the KSCA can also say it is following board rules. That would help both sides.
The problem is that administrators wanted sports centres because they needed vote banks — Sindhi groups, Gujarati groups, Shetty groups and others. Elections became more important than cricket.
Had only cricket clubs voted, all this tamasha would not have happened.
Can the KSCA or RCB realistically protest against this decision?
Whoever wins the IPL, however powerful the franchise may be, the office-bearers still control the game because they are effectively the government in Indian cricket.
As long as they want the final in Ahmedabad, they will keep it there.
If the BCCI is serious about stopping political influence, then stop giving passes to politicians everywhere — not just in Karnataka. Do it in Delhi, Ahmedabad and every other venue too.
Let cricket fans and genuine cricket clubs get the tickets.
At the same time, we should remember that IPL is club cricket. It is not a national event. We are spending too much energy discussing IPL while basic cricket infrastructure and grassroots issues are ignored.
IPL is a fantastic commercial product and one of the richest sports properties in the world. But beyond that, the BCCI should be transparent.
If they want the final in Ahmedabad every year, they should openly say so instead of blaming others.
(The content above has been transcribed from video using a fine-tuned AI model. To ensure accuracy, quality, and editorial integrity, we employ a Human-In-The-Loop (HITL) process. While AI assists in creating the initial draft, our experienced editorial team carefully reviews, edits, and refines the content before publication. At The Federal, we combine the efficiency of AI with the expertise of human editors to deliver reliable and insightful journalism.)
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