The 18th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) is set to kick off on March 21 at Eden Gardens in Kolkata, with the final to take place on May 25 at the same venue.
While Eden Gardens will also host Qualifier 2, the first two playoff matches – Qualifier 1 and Eliminator – will be played in Hyderabad, ESPNcricinfo reports.
It bears noting that ahead of the mega auction in November, the IPL had shared with the franchises the windows for the next three seasons (2025-27). For 2025, the window was between March 15 and May 25. However, with the 2025 Champions Trophy final scheduled for March 9, the IPL decided to keep close to a two-week gap between the tournaments.
The full IPL schedule is expected to be out later this month.
The 2025 season will comprise 74 matches, the same as the last three seasons – ten fewer than the 84 games a season listed by the IPL in 2022, when media rights for the 2023-27 cycle were sold. In the tender document for the new rights cycle, the IPL had listed a varying number of matches per season: from 74 games in 2023 and 2024, 84 in 2025 and 2026, and a maximum of 94 games for the final year of the deal in 2027.
Meanwhile, the Women’s Premier League (WPL) 2025 will likely be held between February 7 and March 2, the cricket platform further reports.
The BCCI has also added two new venues for the WPL. Along with Mumbai and Bengaluru, Baroda and Lucknow will also host WPL games this year. The exact number of matches at each venue is not yet known as the WPL schedule is not yet out for the season scheduled to begin on February 7, per ESPNcricinfo.
