The IPL governing council released a new format for the 2022 season early on Friday. In the new format, the teams are divided into 2 seeds Group A and Group B. The teams are divided on the basis of championships won. Group A’s top-seeded team is Mumbai Indians with 5 championships and Group B’s top seed team is Chennai Super Kings. Other teams in Group A are Kolkata Knight Riders, Rajasthan Royals, Delhi Capitals, and Lucknow Super Giants, in that order.
Group B features Sunrisers Hyderabad, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Punjab Kings, and Gujarat Titans, in that order. IPL said the teams will play 14 games each with 7 home and 7 away games. There will be a total of 70 league matches and 4 playoff games in the entire tournament.
Teams and Matches
Each team will play 5 other side teams. These five sides will comprise the four other teams from the same group and one team from the other group from the corresponding row as per the seedings. For example, Mumbai will play the other four teams in Group A – Knight Riders, Royals, Capitals, and Super Giants – and Super Kings from Group B two times each.
The other four games for each side will be against the remaining teams from the other group, two only at home and two only away. The governing council will not follow the home and away format. The reason behind this is that the IPL has restricted the tournament to 2 cities only. All the league games will be played in 2 cities and 4 stadiums. The cities will be Mumbai and Pune. A higher percentage of Matches will be hosted in Mumbai(55 Matches) the Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA) Stadium on the outskirts of Pune will host 15 matches during the league phase. Every team will play four times each at Wankhede Stadium and DY Patil Sports Academy, and three times each at Brabourne Stadium and the MCA Stadium.
It is unlikely that Mumbai would get any home games because to give fair chance to all teams there might not be any home game for any team.
The final schedule will be released early in March on the official website of IPL and Playoffs venues will be decided later after assessing the pandemic situation in April-May.
Stay tuned for any further updates
