jaipur the sawai man singh stadium could turn up an eyesore for already bewildered rajasthan cricket team as the inauguration ceremony of the firstever state games scheduled on january 2 a day prior to their ranji trophy match is likely to hamper the ideal playing conditions toi has learntrajasthan who lost their first two matches on the trot in group a are scheduled to play against andhra pradesh beginning january 3 at sms stadiumthe robin bistled side would look to bring their ranji trophy campaign back on track but a spoilt pitch and outfield is likely to deflate their hopesthe grand opening ceremony to be inaugurated by chief minister ashok gehlot in the evening for the state games will witness a march past by 8000plus students felicitation of accomplished sportspersons cultural programme and a horse show among other things in front of a sizeable crowdapart from the sms stadium matches of various disciplines will also be held at the rajasthan university chaugan stadium jagatpura shooting range poornima college and jecrc university the other venues too could have been an option for hosting the opening ceremony given these are the potential hubs that can help inculcate sports culture in the state the games will be staged between january 3 and 6but rajasthan sports minister ashok chandana downplayed the concern and sounded confident about everything being looked after well the turf wicket is totally protected and it is not going to be damaged also we will be very careful about keeping the outfield safe it must have come to your knowledge that earlier the plan was to hold the opening ceremony on january 3 but then the only option was to hold the match in some other state but we never wanted any sports event to go away from here so keeping that in mind we shifted the opening ceremony to january 2 chandana told toithe bcci guidelines clearly mandate a state association to hand over the ground four days prior to a match however this was not followed by the rajasthan cricket association rca this timebcci gm cricket operations saba karim confirmed the process we follow at the bcci is minimum four days in advance that ground is handed over for preparation and the bcci hasnt received any information from the rca regarding holding of any such eventdespite being in the knowhow about the domestic calendar the rca chose not to discuss the shuffling of dates or venue with the rajasthan state sports council rssc the owners of the facility further the limited timeframe to mend the ground before start of play at 930 am the very next day should have been considered by rca as it will in all probability put immense pressure on the ground staffhowever rca secretary mahendra sharma allayed all fears saying we have not made any communication with the bcci it is our understanding with the state government we will make sure that the ground is not damaged at allit remains to be seen how things