Bengaluru, March 24 Royal Challengers Bengaluru players will train wearing jersey No. 11 in the warm-up session ahead of the first match of the upcoming IPL, and the franchise also plans to keep 11 seats empty in honour of the fans who died in a stampede outside the M Chinnaswamy Stadium here last year.
The fans had lost their lives here on June 4 in a stampede triggered by chaos during RCB's celebratory events after the team's maiden IPL trophy win.
The franchise had faced massive criticism for its handling of the celebrations, which drew lakhs of people to the streets without proper security clearances.
"The players will be wearing jersey No. 11 for the practice on the game day (of the first match) – the practice time before the match," RCB CEO Rajesh Menon told reporters here on Tuesday.
"All the players will have jersey No. 11 on their back; not for the game, but for practice. This is a tribute to our fans, who will always remain a part of our journey," he said.
"Besides that, they will also be wearing black armbands on that day. We are also looking at having 11 permanent seats empty in Chinnaswamy Stadium. This is for the 11 fans who will be with us forever," he added.
The defending champions will be playing their season-opener here on March 28 against Sunrisers Hyderabad in what will be the first of their five home matches at this venue.
RCB's Director of Cricket Mo Bobat was excited to begin their IPL 2026 campaign at the home venue.
"We are obviously looking forward to getting into our first game and starting our campaign. It is great to be back in Bangalore, as our management team and our players were desperate to come back to Bangalore and to play. So it's great that that's been able to be sorted," he said.
"And obviously, Rajesh has provided a really good update there on a lot of the work that has taken place to make that happen, and obviously, you know, the really important recognition that we want to play on, you know, the sad loss of lives that we had last year," added Bobat.
RCB are set to play their remaining two home matches at Raipur's Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Cricket Stadium this IPL.
Menon also revealed that ticket-holders will be entitled to metro access on match days. Parking can be pre-booked, and all stadium gates will open four hours prior to the match.
He also announced that the franchise has decided not to host the 'Unbox' event this year, with the focus firmly on "ensuring the match-day experience is executed smoothly."
