“Hyderabad and Kolkata were initially supposed to host the last four games before the one week suspension of the tournament. The new venues for the Playoffs were decided by the IPL Governing Council keeping in mind the weather conditions and other parameters,” BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia said in a statement.

Among other things, the game between Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Sunrisers Hyderabad, which was supposed to be played at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on May 23, too, has been shifted to Lucknow because of the inclement weather in the southern part of the country. “Similar to the playoffs stage, an additional one hour will be allocated to the playing conditions for the remaining matches of the league stage, starting Tuesday, May 20,” Saikia added.

Earlier, the game between RCB and Kolkata Knight Riders in Bengaluru was washed out without a ball being bowled due to rain on Saturday. Thousands of fans, who had turned up in whites as a tribute to Virat Kohli’s Test retirement, will be disappointed as they will have to wait till next season for Kohli to walk out on to bat in Bengaluru again. After the SRH game, RCB will stay back in Lucknow and play the Lucknow Super Giants, their last league game, on May 27.