The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has decided to shift the final game of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 to Ahmedabad. As the curtain draws on this year’s season, it has sparked a political tiff between West Bengal’s Trinamool Congress and Gujarat’s Bharatiya Janata Party.
As the playoff approach, the final games were set to be held in Eden Gardens, Kolkata and in Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, as per the IPL tradition. This longstanding tradition of playing in the home ground of the defending champions and the runners up will now be taking a different turn.
“Have BCCI turned into weathermen?”
As per BCCI, the early onset of the southwest monsoon was the primary reason for the shift from Kolkata, Hyderabad to western part of the country in Gujarat. Aroop Biswas, one of TMC’s essential members raised questions and asked how BCCI and the IPL governing council “turned into weathermen”. Citing the weather forecasts in Kolkata, he mentioned that it will be available for May 20 to 30 only after May 14, questioning the basis of the entire decision.
“It is evident that Bengal’s cricket lovers are being deprived by moving out the match from the hallowed Eden Gardens” added Biswas. Accusing the governing body of bias, he continued to question how the weather forecast for June 3 was received even before the IMD issued it.
The Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) has expressed this discontent with the decision too. Stating the reason cited by the BCCI, Saurav Ganguly also tried to persuade the Board to keep the final in Kolkata itself as per reports.
However, the IPL 2025 faced trouble gaining the momentum back since the ten-day suspension following Operation Sindoor. Due to rising political tensions at the border, certain matches scheduled in stadiums like Dharamshala and Chandigarh were moved to another state for security reasons.
The IPL 2025 season was earlier set to conclude on Monday but the revised playoffs schedule proves otherwise. June 3 will mark the third IPL final played in the Narendra Modi Stadium so far. Home team, Gujarat Titans has topped the charts and has won the league previously in 2022.