Dubai: The final of the Pepsi Indian Premier League (IPL) 2014 has been moved from Mumbai to the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore following a meeting of the IPL Governing Council on Saturday.
The popular Twenty20 league’s bosses met in Mumbai and discussed a number of issues, including the scheduling of the season-ending play-offs. A statement said that, as the first 20 matches of IPL-7 were played in the UAE, the council decided to take the play-offs to as many different stadiums as possible.
As a result, the May 27 Qualifier 1 match has been switched from Chennai to the Eden Gardens in Kolkata and the Eliminator set for May 28 will be played at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai, while Qualifier 2 will remain at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium on May 30.
The June 1 final was originally going to be played at the Wankhede Stadium, but has now gone to Bangalore.
Earlier, the meeting was told that the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association had informed the council the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai would not be available for use in IPL-7, so the two matches due to be played there on May 18 and 22 have now been switched to Ranchi.
One other change has seen the May 14 game between Kolkata Knight Riders and Mumbai Indians moved from the Eden Gardens to the Barabati Stadium in Cuttack.
The council also condemned last week’s unsavoury incident between Mumbai’s Kieron Pollard and Royal Challengers Bangalore’s Mitchell Starc, which saw Starc bowl when the batsman had pulled away and the West Indian respond by throwing his bat towards the Australian.
The board’s statement said: “The members expressed their dismay at the incident and unanimously expressed the view that the game in question was not played in the right spirit.
“It was decided to address these concerns by reiterating to all the captains, coaches and team managements featuring in the Pepsi IPL 2014 that such incidents should not be repeated.”
