Kolkata (West Bengal) [India], April 2 : Ahead of the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) clash against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) at Eden Gardens, the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) President Snehasish Ganguly expressed that everything is ready for the defending champions' clash against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) which was postponed from April 6 to 8 due to lack of security owing to Ram Navami festivities.
SRH and KKR, the two trailblazers of last year's edition with plenty of high scores, power-packed knocks, and sky-high run rates, will be aiming to get their campaigns back on track with a crucial match at Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Thursday. Both teams have secured just one win in three matches so far, and their explosive batting lineups, in particular, have not performed as per expectations.
Coming to the LSG clash scheduled for April 8, the match was moved to this date from April 6 owing to the deployment of security for Ram Navami festivities on that day, the official website of IPL said in a press release. "The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announces the rescheduling of Match No. 19 of the TATA Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 between Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), originally scheduled for Sunday, April 6, 2025, at Eden Gardens, Kolkata," the statement said.
"The decision follows a request from Kolkata Police to the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) regarding the deployment of personnel across the city owing to festivities. The authorities have recommended that the game be moved to Tuesday, April 8, 2025, at 3:30 PM, and the request has been accommodated accordingly. The rest of the schedule remains unchanged," the statement added.
Speaking about the LSG clash, Snehasish said to ANI, "Everything is ready, we are ready, the conditions and stadium is ready."
For clarity, Sunday, April 6, will now be a single-header match day, with Sunrisers Hyderabad hosting the Gujarat Titans at 7:30 PM (Match No. 20) as originally scheduled. Tuesday, April 8, will be a double-header match day, featuring the KKR vs. LSG fixture in the afternoon in Kolkata, followed by Punjab Kings hosting Chennai Super Kings (Match No. 22) in New Chandigarh in the evening, as per the original schedule.
On postponement of the fixture, Snehasish said, "When the IPL fixtures came out and we handed the list to the police, they said security could not be provided due to Ram Navami and match will have to be rescheduled. Last year too, a similar situation arose and the match was rescheduled. After the first match (against Royal Challengers Bengaluru on March 22) we were not clear. We saw some comments on social media and newspapers that the match will be postponed. After all calculations, etc, the match will take place on the eighth, at 3:30 PM."
Snehasish also explained that with Ram Navami festivities taking place all over Kolkata and the match taking place inside Eden Gardens with around 70,000 expected to come to the stadium, it would need over 2,000 police personnel to control the stadium completely.
"At managing this, Kolkata Police was the best judge and they gave their proposal (of postponing to BCCI)," added CAB president.
Snehasish also said that the tickets for the match were not even printed till the final date of April 8 was announced.
"There is a concession on tickets for the match scheduled for April 8 (against Lucknow Super Giants). There is a trend these days that the matches which are bigger and important, the ticket pricing takes place accordingly and is higher. During the World Cup as well (in 2023), we kept the ticket prices high for important matches, but where the matches were not very big, there was a price cushion," he added.
Speaking on the KKR-SRH clash, Snehasish said that around 50,000 people are expected to come.
On KKR's rocky start to the tournament, Snehasish said, "KKR is a balanced team and has played the final many times and were champions last year. They know their job well and the coach (Chandrakant Pandit) is also very senior and experienced. All the players in the team are also playing T20s since a long time. Just because one match went bad does not mean anything bad. There is a lot of matches left. That is the fun of T20 cricket. You lose one, but you are the king in the next game."
Speaking about the incident during the tournament opener when a fan jumped through the stadium and invaded the pitch to meet Virat Kohli, Snehasish said, "The height of guardrails and barricading has been increased. The police will be more alert."