PBL 2020: Final leg of fifth season shifted to Hyderabad from Bengaluru

The final leg of the fifth season of Premier Badminton League (PBL) was shifted to Hyderabad from Bengaluru after the city's franchise, Bengaluru Raptors, expressed its inability to host the matches including the semifinals and final due to unavailability of the Sree Kanteerava Stadium.

"The last leg of Premier Badminton League (PBL) Season 5, which was scheduled from February 5-9, has been shifted from Bengaluru to Hyderabad due to unavailability of the stadium. The fifth season of the PBL is commencing from January 20. Hyderabad was supposed to host the matches from January 29 to February 4 as per the original schedule," the league said in a statement.

"Now 15 matches including three doubleheaders will be hosted by Hyderabad as per the updated schedule which will start from January 29. The semi-finals and finals will also be hosted in Hyderabad. The other two venues for the season 5 are Chennai (January 20-24) and Lucknow (Jan 25-28)," it further added.

As per the original schedule, Bengaluru was set to host two of the league matches as well as the semifinals and the final (February 5 to 9) of the upcoming edition. However, as reported by The Bridge, the Bengaluru Raptors posted a series of tweets on their official account making it clear that due to the unavailability of the Sree Kanteerava Indoor Stadium, they might not be able to host the scheduled matches.

It is very tragic because Bengaluru is one of the cities where the sport is very popular. Ironically, though, it is also the only city where we face problems in hosting PBL matches,” Prashanth Reddy, owner of Bengaluru Raptors, had said.

The upcoming edition of the PBL is scheduled to start on 20th January 2020 when P.V. Sindhu’s team Hyderabad Hunters faces Chennai Superstarz in Chennai. Overall, a total of 24 ties will be played in 21 days. Here is the full updated schedule of PBL Season 5: