{"id":496218,"date":"2026-03-26T10:29:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T10:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/496218\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T10:29:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T10:29:07","slug":"ipl-2026-rcb-vs-srh-tickets-sold-out-but-is-the-chinnaswamy-ready-for-opening-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/496218\/","title":{"rendered":"IPL 2026 – RCB vs SRH – Tickets sold out, but is the Chinnaswamy ready for opening night?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Royal Challengers Bengaluru<\/a> (RCB) CEO Rajesh Menon announced at the franchise’s press conference ahead of IPL 2026<\/a> that ticket sales would go live at 4pm, page views on their platform skyrocketed. The tickets for Saturday’s season-opener, RCB against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), sold out in four minutes.<\/p>\n

Whether the stadium is fully ready is the more pertinent question.<\/p>\n

Three days out from the IPL’s opening night, the playing arena was pristine and the pitch well tended to as SRH went through a rigorous training session next to the square. If you stepped beyond the boundary rope, though, the venue told a different story.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday evening, the Chinnaswamy resembled a construction site. Sheets of plywood greeted you at the main entrance, masking areas still under preparation and making you wonder about March 28, when the red carpet will be rolled out.<\/p>\n

Around the stadium’s periphery, no section had been left untouched, and none of them were fully ready either. Masons, carpenters, contractors and vendors were all working in unison, racing against time to put finishing touches in place.<\/p>\n

\"Will<\/p>\n

The Chinnaswamy Stadium is undergoing large-scale infrastructure work in response to the June 4 stampede outside its gates\u2022ESPNcricinfo Ltd<\/p>\n

At the side of the stadium abutting Cubbon Road, temporary walkways had been carved out for the new concourse area for fan entry and exit, with walls and gates still awaiting coats of paint. There was a constant hum of drilling, welding and hammering, punctuated by the crunch of sawdust and cement underfoot.<\/p>\n

“We haven’t slept for four days,” one worker said. He isn’t alone. Venkatesh Prasad, who inherited a crisis when he took over as the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) president in December, says he hasn’t had a full night’s sleep for a couple of months.<\/p>\n

The original deadline for completion of was March 15. But, as is often the case, work has spilled over.<\/p>\n

Amid all the bustle are sombre reminders of June 4. Just beside the players’ entrance to the pavilion, a memorial plaque has been unveiled to honour the 11 lives lost in last year’s stampede. A prayer meeting was held for the departed, and RCB and the KSCA have committed to leaving 11 seats vacant forever – in Menon’s words.<\/p>\n

Some of the systems put in place as a direct response to the tragedy are ready to go, including ticketing integrated with the Bengaluru Metro and staggered entry through QR-coded tickets, both designed to ease congestion.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday evening, there were signs that these were having an effect. The usual throngs of fans circling the stadium, searching for the box office for tickets, were nowhere to be seen. Build-up to matchday seemed far more orderly and controlled than before, amid the usual peak-hour evening traffic surrounding the venue.<\/p>\n

Inside, activity went on long after the sun had set and lights had taken effect. Special police permission has been sought for work to carry on at a war footing to ensure the Chinnaswamy is ready for Saturday.<\/p>\n

The focus of RCB’s inaugural press conference was firmly on logistics, safety and preparedness. It was striking that there wasn’t a single question about Virat Kohli, almost unthinkable in the past.<\/p>\n

The circumstances are unprecedented, the scale of the task before RCB and the KSCA is immense, and the time remaining is limited. The work is far from over. But the hope is that all systems will be in order by March 28, and fans can pack the Chinnaswamy once again, reassured of their well-being.<\/p>\n

Shashank Kishore is a senior correspondent at ESPNcricinfo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) CEO Rajesh Menon announced at the franchise’s press conference ahead of IPL 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[132648,1721,36623,49,50,132647,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-496218","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-bulletin","9":"tag-cricket","10":"tag-daily","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-package","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}