IPL 2022 to commence on March 26th with the final schedule on May 29th. The schedule was set up on Thursday by the IPL Governing Council, who also decided that the league phase of the tourney would be constricted to just two cities: Mumbai and Pune.
Four locations – the Wankhede Stadium and Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai, the DY Patil Sports Academy in Navi Mumbai, and the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Gahunje, in the outskirts of Pune – will conduct the league phase featuring 70 matches.
Considering the playoffs, which will feature four matches, the IPL has firmed to keep its venue choices open for now. A final decision on that, the Governing Council decided, would be taken later based on the COVID-19 pandemic situation in India in April-May.
The Governing Council also decided to keep open the option of permitting crowds to attend the games, dependent on permission from the Maharashtra government.
This version of IPL will be a 10-team competition with the addition of two new franchises – Lucknow Super Giants and Gujarat Titans – last October.
The franchises favoured limiting the tournament to just one location – Mumbai – after the failure in the 2021 season, which had to be postponed at the halfway stage when the second wave of COVID-19 hampering across India breached the IPL bubble.
In an internal evaluation, the IPL ended that teams travelling between multiple cities had been one reason for positive cases within teams in the first half of the 2021 season. The tournament continued in September-October, with the second leg played in the UAE – which had organized the whole of IPL 2020.
