Bengaluru : With hosts Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) playing in the Indian Premier League (IPL-9) final on Sunday against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) for the elusive title, Bengaluru is bracing for a high octane clash at the M. Chinnaswamy stadium in the city centre.
The RCB fans are upbeat with the way Virat Kohli’s boys have played last 4-5 matches. Will captain Kohli reach the milestone of scoring 1,000 runs in one IPL season? Will it be Gayle’s day? Will it be ABD show again or will it be a day of Sunrisers Hyderabad… cricket fans are holding their nerves to find out answers to those questions making this Sunday a special and super one!
“The city has been put on a high alert for hosting the event (IPL final). Security measures are in place to ensure safety of players and fans at the stadium, which has been sanitised and fortified to prevent any incident,” city additional police commissioner K S R Charan Reddy told IANS on Saturday.
A Bombay High Court order to shift IPL games, including the final out of drought-hit Maharashtra to save water has been a windfall for the frenzied fans, as its board (BCCI) awarded the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) to host the final.
The city had hosted the IPL-7 final on June 1, 2014 when Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) defeated Kings XI Punjab by three wickets to lift the title for the second time.
“Besides deploying about 1,000 police personnel in and around the venue, an anti-sabotage drill is being conducted to secure the stadium. A dog squad and a bomb squad have been pressed to sniff out any threat to the venue,” Reddy said.
Though RCB played twice in IPL finals and lost — first at Johannesburg in South Africa in 2009 against the defunct Deccan Chargers and second in Chennai against the suspended Chennai Super Kings in 2011, they are playing in an IPL final on home turf for the first time and hoping to be third time lucky in lifting the cup.
With tickets for the high-voltage match sold out online and offline by May 25, a day after the home team entered the final by beating Gujarat Lions in the first qualifier, KSCA is expecting about 40,000 fans to pack the floodlit stadium on a summer night for a cracker of a contest.
