Reports suggest that the Chennai’s historic MA Chidambaram Stadium may not host any of the India matches, during the upcoming ICC World T20 2016. It is also clear that Chennai will not host any matches involving Srilanka, due to security concerns.
MA Chidambaram Stadium, considered as one of the best Cricket venues in the country is also the home ground for the suspended IPL team Chennai Super kings. Dhoni and his team enjoyed a wide fan following in Chepauk during the IPL matches hosted here. The fans of Chennai will definitely be disappointed with the sidelining of Chennai to host any of the Indian team matches during the World T20 tournament.
As per the sources, Chennai may get to host two T20 matches played between other countries to compensate for the loss. There is no official statement yet, over why Chennai may lose to host any of the India matches. Apart from this, Chennai will also not host any of the matches played by the Srilankan team due to the political scenario prevailing in the State and the Tamil-Sinhala conflict.
After attending a BCCI meeting over the arrangements for ICC World T20, BCCI secretary Mr Anurag Thakur said, “See there are a few reasons for not finalizing Chennai as a venue. There are a certain limitations for us to follow to host a match in Chennai. You cannot play Srilanka there and three stands in the stadium are yet to be completed”.
When asked about the finalization of the venues for World T20 tournament the BCCI secretary said that the board is yet to take a final call over it and send the report to the ICC for approval. “We are working over it. That is why we have met today. The final list of venues for the tournament are yet to be decided. We had a detailed discussion today, to make the tournament successful without any problems”, he added.
On the other hand, the BCCI appointed Ratnakar Shetty, a veteran Mumbai cricket administrator as the coordinator of the ICC World T20 2016. He was also the event director of the ICC World Cup, held in 2011, the CricBuzz reports.
