The 2022 IPL edition will kick off March 26 i.e. just 11 days after Team India finishes their ongoing assignment against Sri Lanka. The league stage, comprising of 70 matches will be played across 4 venues in Mumbai and Pune with the final set to be played on May 29 in Ahmedabad.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 55 league matches will take place in Mumbai, while 15 will be played in Pune. Each team will play four matches at the Wankhede Stadium and the DY Patil Stadium while three at the Brabourne Stadium and the MCA Stadium.
“The IPL will kick off on March 26, the full schedule will come soon. We will also have crowds but as per the policy of the Maharashtra government. Whether it will be 25 or 50 per cent of the stadium capacity will be decided by the government instruction,” the IPL chairman Brijesh Patel told Cricbuzz.
According to several reports, the playoffs stage of the elite T20 tournament will be played at Ahmedabad’s Narendra Modi Stadium, but Patel stated that the IPL Governing Council will decide about the play-offs later.
The IPL 2022, which sees the addition of two new teams in Lucknow Super Giants and Gujarat Titans, will witness an increase of 14 league stage matches.
The MS Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings will be looking to defend their title and equal Mumbai Indians’ record of having the most IPL trophies. Earlier, the IPL 2022 mega auction took place in Bengaluru on February 12 and 13 where all the ten franchises bought their favourite players and compiled their squads for the upcoming season of the T20 extravaganza.
