The M. Chinnaswamy Stadium was not given the venue for the IPL 2026 final. This decision was clarified by Devajit Saikia, the secretary of BCCI. According to him, 10,000 additional tickets were demanded by MLAs and MLCs for hosting the final in their city.

The venue for the playoffs and the final of IPL 2026 has been declared by the BCCI on Wednesday. While the final would be hosted in the Narendra Modi stadium of Ahmedabad, the playoffs would be played in Dharamsala and New Chandigarh. The fact that the final was denied to Chinnaswamy has surprised many, while Ahmedabad got it owing to high demand for freebies.

Speaking to news agency ANI, Saikia said, "As per IPL protocol, we are required to provide only 15 percent of the total seating capacity as complimentary tickets to the host cricket association. This is the standard protocol. Tickets are provided to all cricket associations under this. We learned from sources that the Karnataka State Cricket Association was demanding more tickets than the stipulated 15 percent during the IPL league matches."

The BCCI secretary further said, "We sent an email to the association regarding this. We were surprised by the response we received from the Karnataka Cricket Association on May 2nd. In that email, they had demanded 10,000 additional tickets in addition to the 15 percent complimentary tickets. They had requested tickets for their members, affiliated clubs, and others. According to Saikia, this was the reason why the BCCI decided to hold the final in Ahmedabad."

"The most surprising thing was that they had demanded tickets for their Assembly and Legislative Council members as well. They had also demanded 700 tickets from the Karnataka government. So, they wanted 10,000 tickets in addition to the 15 per cent tickets," Saikia said.