No Rajasthan Royals Matches In Jaipur! RR Shifting Home To This City For IPL 2026

Rajasthan Royals (RR) is all set to shift its home base for the upcoming IPL 2026 season to the Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA) stadium in Pune. According to a RevSportz report, RR’s usual home, the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur, failed to ‘comply with evacuation safety norms’.

The franchise will divide its eight home games of the season between the Pune ground and the Barsapara Stadium in Guwahati, where it hosts a few games every year. Previous reports had said that even the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) were in the running for using the ground, because the Karnataka government had deemed the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru as dangerous for hosting large gatherings.

However, now, the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA)

is hopeful of getting the IPL back to the ground.

Although the reported issue is about the Jaipur stadium’s infrastructure, the RR and Rajasthan Cricket Associations have had deeper problems in the past.

Last year, Jaydeep Bihani, the convener of the RCA’s ad-hoc committee at the time, publicly alleged that the Rajasthan Royals’ match against the Lucknow Super Giants was ‘fixed,’ a charge the franchise categorically rejected, with senior BCCI officials also dismissing the accusation as baseless in off-the-record comments to the media.

Recently, the BCCI took a firm stand against the state board, too, issuing an ultimatum that no IPL matches will be hosted at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium until the state body resolves its governance crisis. IPL chairman Arun Dhumal reiterated that the RCA must conduct long-pending elections in line with BCCI norms and install an elected body, failing which Jaipur will remain ineligible as an IPL venue.

The association has been run by ad-hoc committees for nearly two years, a situation that violates BCCI guidelines. However, RCA is set to appoint a third ad-hoc committee in two years after the current panel, led by D.D. Kumawat failed to reach a consensus on conducting elections.

The MCA Stadium, formerly home to the now-defunct Rising Pune Supergiants, has not staged an IPL match in the last three seasons, with its most recent appearance coming in 2022 when the tournament was held across limited venues in Mumbai and Pune, while the Playoffs were hosted in Kolkata and Ahmedabad.