The IPL 2025 season is scheduled to run from March 21 to May 25, featuring 74 matches. The opening match will take place at Eden Gardens, Kolkata, and the final will also be hosted at the same venue. Each team will play 14 league-stage games, followed by playoffs in the standard format.
There has been a slight tweak to the schedule for the 18th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL), with the tournament now set to begin a week later than originally announced. The season will commence on March 21 in Kolkata and the final is likely to take place on May 25 at the same venue.
There are two versions regarding the changes to the Season 18 schedule. In an earlier communication to the franchises on November 22, ahead of the IPL auction in Jeddah, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had stated that the tournament would run from “Friday, March 14, to Sunday, May 25, 2025. The BCCI had also announced the dates for the next two IPL seasons.
However, it is now being suggested that those dates were merely indicative of the window reserved for the season and not the actual schedule. The second version attributes the delay to a request from broadcasters, who have apparently sought a later start in view of the Champions Trophy final, which is slated for March 9, just five days before the originally announced IPL kick-off. However, sources within the broadcasting network have denied making any such request.
The venues for the key games are on the expected lines. Eden Gardens, home the Kolkata Knight Riders, champions of IPL 2024, will host both the opener and the final, in line with the practice of holding these matches in the winning side’s home city. Meanwhile, the SunRisers Hyderabad, last season’s runners-up, will host two playoff games.
The exact schedule is expected to be announced in the coming days, now that the BCCI has elected a full-term secretary, Devjit Saikia, and treasurer, Prabhtej Singh Bhatia.
