NAGPUR: It’s official now. Benguluru’s loss will be Nagpur’s gain. The
Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) bandwagon will skip its Bengaluru stop this year and hit the city in August. The
Bengaluru Bulls announced on Tuesday that they were forced to move their home matches to Nagpur owing the unavailability of the Sree Kanteerava stadium during the August 4-10 slot they had requested.
Bulls will now play their six home matches at the indoor stadium of Divisional Sports Complex, Mankapur, Bengaluru Bulls team owner
Uday Sinh Wala
told TOI.
“We were stuck and had to take a difficult decision,” said Uday. “Benguluru is our home. I don’t want to be out of my home but we ran out of options. We checked in Pune, Chennai and Hyderabad before settling on Nagpur,” Uday said.
Last week, members of the Benguluru Bulls operational team visited the divisional complex. As many as three teams with around 20 members were in the city to finalize the venue.
They checked out the facilities as well as the seating capacity of the stadium. Satisfied with the facilities, the Bulls operational team confirmed the availability of the stadium on the match dates and confirmed Nagpur as the venue for their Home matches.
Last Saturday, Bulls officially submitted their rent application to hire the stadium from July 29 to August 11. Deputy director, Sports,
Subhash Rewatkar
confirmed TOI about receiving the application from Bengaluru Bulls. “On Saturday they have officially applied to hire the stadium. Since today I was out of town, I will forward their application with a note sheet for confirmation to the Divisional Commissioner office on Wednesday,” Rewatkar said.
The FIBA U-16 Women’s Asian Championship to be held in Benguluru led to non-availability of the Sree Kanteerava stadium. “We haven’t got the necessary permissions to use the Sree Kanteerava stadium. We wrote a letter to the Department of Youth Empowerment and Sports (DYES) and have been waiting for their reply since early June. Now, I have just nine working days to stage the tournament and am out of time. We usually try to get the permissions a month in advance,” Uday said.
Uday said that he originally approached the DYES for an October slot but was informed that the venue was already booked to host the FIBA U-16 Women’s Asian Championship in the third week of that month. “After that, we requested the August slot and followed it up some time later saying we were reaching our deadline and that the entire league was waiting for their answer,” said Uday, stating that any further delay would mean logistical issues relating to booking of hotels, air tickets and ensuring the broadcast team sets up operations at the venue.
DYES director
Anupam Agrawal
said permission had not been granted as the stadium was booked until the end of October. He added that an alternative in the form of the Koramangala stadium was offered.
Uday said the Koramangala stadium was not considered. “We explored that option in the past and it does not have sufficient space for broadcast and other logistics to do a complete job. The roof will not block sound if it rains as it is low. There is no air-conditioning and if we put in external system on our own at a high cost, like we have done in the past at Sree Kanteerava stadium, then we will have space to seat less than 1,000 people,” he said.
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