New Delhi, May 07
About 26 hours away from the start of Royal Challengers Bangalore’s final Indian Premier League 2019 game, against Sunrisers Hyderabad. Several vehicles enter and exit the gates of M Chinnaswamy Stadium. A stern security guard stops and demands a press accreditation card as I try to enter gate number 10. My colleague, a sports journalist, tries to explain that I will be watching just the practise session from the stands and, hence, don’t require an accreditation card. The guard doesn’t budge. My entry is made possible only after a phone call to an official.
“It is easier to enter on days when there aren’t any matches,” my colleague informs me.
At the P1 stand, several fans await RCB players to enter the ground. The groundsmen have pitched the nets for practice. Some of them sweep the pitch with coconut brooms. Some have marked the lines and adjusted the sightscreen.
“On match days and a day before that, it is a little hectic,” the ground’s curator Prashanth Rao tells me. “The shift begins at 7 am and ends between 7 pm and 8 pm on days before the match.
On match days, it can get really late.”
