NEW DELHI :
IPL Governing Council held a meeting on Thursday that decided that the 15th edition of the Indian Premiere League (IPL) would commence from 26 March and continue till 29 May. The meeting also decided that all matches would be held in Maharashtra’s capital city Mumbai and Pune.
Jay Shah, the Honorary Secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Friday in an official press release announced that the 74 matches will be held in Mumbai and Pune only, in order to avoid air travel.
According to the release, Mumbai will host 55 matches in three stadiums in and around the city, while Pune will host the remaining 15 league games which means air travel will not be required for the league’s 10 franchises.
According to the official statement, Mumbai’s Wankhede stadium is set to host 20 matches, Brabourne Stadium (CCI) in Mumbai will host 15 matches, DY Patil Stadium in Mumbai will host 20 matches and finally MCA International Stadium in Pune will host 15 matches.
“The venue for the playoff matches will be decided later,” Jay Shah said in a statement a day after the IPL governing council meeting. The meeting also said that only 40 percent crowd will be allowed at the start of the tournament in Mumbai stadiums.
The governing council considered air travel “a major threat for the spread of Covid-19 infection,” he added.
The press release mentioned that all teams will play 4 matches each at Wankhede Stadium and DY Patil Stadium, 3 matches each at Brabourne Stadium (CCI) and MCA International Stadium, Pune.
Further the release mentioned that the 10 teams will play a total of 14 league matches (7 home matches and 7 away matches) totaling to 70 league matches, followed by the 4 playoff matches.
“Each team will play 5 teams twice and the remaining 4 teams only once (2 only home and 2 only away).To decide on the above, teams have been assigned in two virtual groups based on the number of IPL Championships won followed by the number of Final matches played by the respective teams”, according to the press release.
The final match is scheduled to be held on 29 May.
The entire 2020 edition and the second half of last year’s competition were held in the United Arab Emirates following a surge in Covid-19 numbers in India.
The league will welcome two new franchises this season after Lucknow and Ahmedabad paid a combined $1.7 billion to join the world’s richest cricket league.
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