Picture Credit: BCCI/IPL
With everyone eagerly waiting for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 schedule to be out, a recent report has given a rough idea of what it may look like. According to the report, the three venues in Mumbai are expected to host more than 2/3rd of the league games while the only venue in Pune will be hosting the left games.
Cricbuzz, in its latest report, has claimed that the three venues in Mumbai- Wankhede Stadium, Brabourne Stadium, and DY Patil Stadium will host the 55 league games while the Maharashtra Cricket Association International Stadium in Pune will host 15 of the 70 league matches. The report also claims that each team will be playing eight of their fourteen league games each at the Wankhede Stadium and the DY Patil Stadium (four at each venue) while the Brabourne and MCA Stadium in Pune will host three games each for every team.
The start date of the 15th edition of the IPL is also being contemplated. Either of 26 or 27 March will see the tournament opener being played. The confusion about the start date arose when the official broadcasters expressed the desire to prepone the start to get the momentum early. As there is confusion about the start date, the number of doubleheaders also remains unknown. The report does not give a clear picture about the playoff games but as reported by SportsTiger before, the knockout games are expected to be played in Ahmedabad.
IPL 2022 Final on May 29
The report further claims that irrespective of the confusion in the start date, the tournament finale is expected to be played on May 29, Sunday. However, a final call on all of this will be taken in the IPL Governing Council meeting scheduled for 24 February, Thursday.
Number of league matches to remain 14 for each team
With two new teams coming in, the number of league matches was expected to increase, and they will. But not for each team. They will still play 14 league games. To manage the number of league games and also to ensure that each team plays against the other nine, the IPL GC is set to go back to its 2012 format where the teams were divided into two groups.
In this season, the ten teams will be divided into two groups of five teams each (Group A and Group B). And a team will play one match against each of its four group members while two matches each against the five teams of the other group.
For example:
Group A:
Mumbai
Rajasthan
Bangalore
Punjab
Lucknow
Group B:
Chennai
Gujarat
Kolkata
Hyderabad
Delhi
In this case, if we consider Mumbai, it will play 2 matches against each team in the other group i.e. Group 'B' (Chennai, Gujarat, Kolkata, Hyderabad, and Delhi). From its own group i.e. Group 'A', it will only play 1 match against each team (Rajasthan, Bangalore, Punjab, and Lucknow).
