Ahead of the 12th edition of the IPL, The Cricketer has all the important information you need to properly follow what promises to be a stellar competition...
The cricketing behemoth that is the Indian Premier League was introduced in 2008 and has gone on to become one of the world’s largest and most-watched T20 franchise tournaments.
The latest edition of the competition gets underway on Saturday March 23 with defending champions Chennai Super Kings taking on Royal Challengers Bangalore.
The entire tournament takes place India with matches being held in Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, Jaipur, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Mohali. All eight teams will play their seven home fixtures at their own respective stadiums.
Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper Virat Kohli
The eight teams are:
The group stage, which runs until May 5, consists of a league format with each of the eight reams playing each other home and away.
At the end of the group stage, the top four teams qualify for the play-off stage. The play-off stage consists of three matches, followed by a final.
Qualifier 1: The top two sides play each other in ‘Qualifier 1’. The winner advances to the final, the loser plays again in ‘Qualifier 2’.
Eliminator match: The third and fourth-placed teams face each other in the ‘Eliminator match’ with the winner heading for ‘Qualifier 2’ and the loser heading home.
Qualifier 2: The loser of Qualifier 1 meets the winner of the Eliminator match. The winner of this one advances to the IPL final to meet the winner of Qualifier 1.
Hopefully that’s cleared that up…
*The schedule for the play-offs is yet to be released.
England's Sam Curran went for a hefty price tag
If you ask the bookies, it’s a two-horse race between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Mumbai Indians. It’s a tight pack though with CSK sure to put up a fight in defending their title. Kings XI Punjab are the outsiders if you fancy backing the underdogs.
Which aren’t?
White-ball walloper Shane Watson is with CSK, ‘Universe Boss’ Chris Gayle lends his services to Kings XI Punjab while Virat Kohli remains as skipper of RCB.
A 27-year-old mystery spinner, Varun Chakaravarthy, who only made his List A debut for Tamil Nadu in September, had the honour of commanding the highest fee (£895,000 paid by Kings XI Punjab) at this year’s IPL Auction.
Englishman Sam Curran wasn’t too far behind, with Kings XI forking out £800,000 for his services.
Mumbai meanwhile boast an English quartet of Jofra Archer, Jos Buttler, Liam Livingstone and Ben Stokes in their ranks.
Well, until earlier this week, we weren’t too sure when Sky Sports confirmed they would not be showing the IPL in 2019.
Now it has been confirmed that the IPL is being shown both BT Sport and Star Gold UK (Sky channel 729; Virgin Media 801).
Alternatively the action can be found on Hotstar, an online streaming service.
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Posted by Anurag Seth on 09/04/2019 at 13:38
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