No games in Jaipur for Rajasthan Royals

The Rajasthan Royals will play all their home games of the 2013 IPL in Gujarat instead of Jaipur, their original home city. The decision to move the matches from Jaipur to Rajkot and Ahmedabad was taken after an IPL governing council meeting on Monday in Chennai.

Following a dispute between the Rajasthan Cricket Association and the state sports council, the Sawai Man Singh Stadium in Jaipur has been unavailable for the RCA for almost a year.

Since the dispute could not be resolved, the governing council, in its previous meeting on January 23 had placed Ahmedabad and Rajkot on standby for hosting the Royals' home games. The governing council meeting confirmed allocating four games each to the Sardar Patel Gujarat Stadium in Ahmedabad and the Saurashtra Cricket Association stadium in Rajkot.

Royals have used Jaipur as their base in each of the five years since the IPL was launched in 2008.

At any rate, the significance of home advantage might be reduced following instructions - after a meeting between the curators of various state associations and BCCI officials - regarding the state of pitches in IPL 2013.* "Clear instructions have been handed out to the curators, that they should prepare sporting wickets and should not listen to any requests from the franchises," a member of a state association was quoted as saying by PTI. "The franchise owners have also been apprised that they should not put any type of pressure on the curators to prepare wickets of their choice."