Two new venues, more security for IPL

Security will be of "paramount" importance during the second season of the IPL, with a centralised security force monitoring teams, official, venues and grounds, Lalit Modi, the league's chairman, has said. Confirming two new venues - Ahmdedabad and Vishakapatnam - Modi said the IPL was close to finalising the revised itinerary and was waiting for the final nod from the states, "90%" of whom had given their approval.

Modi also announced that the DY Patil Sports Academy stadium in Mumbai, which hosted the final last year, will be the venue for the opening and closing ceremonies.

After last week's Lahore terror attack, many foreign players have voiced their concerns about playing in the IPL. Modi said he understood their fears but said they had nothing to worry as he detailed the enhanced security measures worked out by the IPL this time.

Unlike last year where states and individual franchises looked after security, the IPL governing council has decided to have a central security force which would enable smooth movement of the teams, officials and the television crew across various venues. "Nicholls Steyn, the agency looking after player security last year, will now work closely with state security forces from this year," Modi said. "The whole security will be managed centrally."

Modi said the security arrangements would be similar to those after the Mumbai terror attack last November when England returned to play a Test in Chennai. "It is a very, very elaborate template. We did the exercise after the Mumbai blasts for the Chennai Test against England last year. We had a rigorous contingency plan put in place, shared by the security forces, government and the ECB. It was implemented without any hitch. We are now taking that as a base template and apply that to every city the IPL will be hosted in."

Modi said the security budget had been hiked ten-fold because "the movement of players is constant and it is a cumbersome process and as such we require large amounts of coordination, teams and people to do that".

He said the IPL was close to finalising the new schedule but was waiting for final confirmations from some of the states. The government requested the IPL to re-work the dates since the league's itinerary overlaps with the general elections.

Modi said games would take place on all dates except May 16, the day of counting the votes. Modi also said three states so far had sent their written consent to host the IPL. "Rajasthan was the first state to agree," Modi said, without naming the other two.

Denying the speculation about the venues in various sections of the media Modi confirmed Vishakapatnam and Ahmedabad will host a few games and said Dharamshala is likely too as well. "We have confirmations from Vishakapatnam, Ahmedabad and Dharamsala in terms of holding games there," he said. "But the IPL is waiting for the last word from Dharamsala, which falls in the catchment area for Punjab."

He also did not rule out Nagpur yet. "They are still in the fray. What is happening is the schedule is being fine tuned every minute and when we move one game out of a particular city it has a big domino effect on all other games because it is not only a case of taking one game out of here and putting it up there. It is a cumbersome [process]."

Modi denied reports that both Jaipur and Chennai will not be hosting any games. "Jaipur will be hosting games but the state had asked for blackout period during May so we worked out dates accordingly. Because of the blackout dates in Chennai some of the games have been moved."