Starting from March 22, the final will also be played at the Eden Gardens Stadium; 2 playoff matches in Hyderabad
The 18th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) will begin on Saturday, March 22. The opening and final matches will be played at Eden Gardens, the home ground of defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). In the first match, KKR will face Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB).
According to a report by Cricbuzz, the complete schedule of IPL can be announced in 1 or 2 days. The franchise team has been given information about the important matches. Kolkata won the title by defeating Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in the 2024 final. This time 2 playoff matches will be played in Hyderabad.
Hyderabad will also start from home ground.
The 17th season’s runners-up Sunrisers Hyderabad will also start their campaign at their home ground Uppal. They will take on Rajasthan Royals on March 23, the match will start at 3.30 pm IST. The two teams also faced each other in Qualifier-2 last season. Hyderabad entered the final by winning the match.
The final will be held in Kolkata on May 25.
In IPL, the opening and final matches are played at the home ground of the defending ipl champion team. This time too, both the important matches will be held at the Eden Gardens stadium in Kolkata. The final will be played on May 25. Qualifier-2 will also be held in Kolkata. Qualifier-1 and the Eliminator will be played at Hyderabad, which is the home ground of previous runners-up SRH.
RCB will enter under the leadership of a new captain
RCB announced their new captain on Thursday. Madhya Pradesh’s Rajat Patidar will lead the team in the 18th season. KKR will also play the tournament with a new captain. Previous captain Shreyas Iyer will play for Punjab Kings this season, so KKR will have to choose a new captain.
IPL 10 teams will compete in 12 venues
Apart from the home grounds of the 10 teams, matches will also be played in Guwahati and Dharamshala. Guwahati is the second home ground of Rajasthan Royals (RR), the team will play 2 matches here. The team will face Kolkata here on March 26 and Chennai on March 30. Dharamshala is the second home ground of Punjab Kings (PBKS). The team will play 3 matches here.
The remaining home grounds of the 10 teams are Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Lucknow, Mullanpur, Delhi, Jaipur, Kolkata and Hyderabad. The remaining matches of the season will be played here. A total of 74 matches will be played between the 10 teams in the tournament.
Chennai and Mumbai have won the most titles.
IPL is a franchise cricket tournament played in India. It is played in T20 format from March to May every year. It started in 2008 with 8 teams. Rajasthan won the first season title by defeating Chennai in the final.
In 2022, the tournament started with 10 teams, since then 10 teams have participated continuously. Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Mumbai Indians (MI) have won the most i.e. 5 titles each. Kolkata is the third most successful team in the tournament, having won 3 titles. Delhi, Bengaluru, Punjab and Lucknow have not won a single title so far.