Following the heartbreaking stampede in Bengaluru last week, which claimed 11 lives and injured several others during the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB)’s IPL 2025 title celebration, former India captain Sunil Gavaskar has offered his perspective on the tragic events.
In his column for a leading publication, Gavaskar described the loss of life simply to catch a glimpse of sporting heroes as “heartbreaking.” He acknowledged the “understandable” boundless joy of fans after an 18-year wait for their favorite team to lift the trophy, adding that it was now “futile” to assign blame.
Gavaskar stated, “The loss of lives due to a stampede outside the Chinnaswamy Stadium is heartbreaking indeed. All that those people wanted was a glimpse of the players who had given them so much joy and happiness over the years, especially in the last two months. The IPL Trophy, which they kept hoping would be theirs every year but never did, was finally coming to them after a wait of 18 years. It was totally understandable for their joy to know no bounds and they wanted to show it to their heroes… For some to have been crushed to death and many still injured and in hospital was truly a tragic turn of events. There is no point blaming anyone. That’s futile as the lives can’t be brought back and some injuries may never heal properly, especially the mental ones.”
Sunil Gavaskar further hypothesized that such a tragedy might have been averted if RCB had secured the title in the initial years of the tournament, believing it would have prevented such an “outpouring of emotion”.
Do you agree with Sunil Gavaskar?
