There is some exciting news for cricket fans all over India as the dates of the much-awaited biggest tournament of the Indian T20 Premier League 2023 have been announced. According to some reports, the 16th edition of IPL is likely to start on 1 April 2023. It is expected that the first match of IPL 2023 will be played between the Gujarat Titans and Rajasthan Royals team.
We have seen previously that IPL follows the trend of fixing the opening match between the teams who have played the final in the previous season. Now, since the finals of IPL 2022 have been played between Rajasthan Royals and Gujarat Titans, we can predict that the opening matches will also be played between them.
The first match will be played in Motera stadium, the home stadium of Gujarat Titans. Playing in front of their fans will provide a good opportunity for the Gujarat Titans to kick off their 16th edition of the Indian T20 Premier League with a fine start.
Recently, the Board Of Cricket Council Of India (BCCI) held a meeting regarding Indian T20 Premier League 2023 where they discussed some of the key topics about the venues, formats, schedules, auctions, and substitute player rules.
Let’s know the key discussions held on some of the topics mentioned above:-
Venue
The BCCI has decided that in the 16th edition of the IPL, all teams are allowed to play half of their games on home soil and half of the games on away soil. All the matches of the IPL 2023 will be played between 10 stadiums. Previously, we have seen how Chennai Super Kings dominated their home matches. The same goes for Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Kolkata Knight Riders.
Schedules & Formats
The 16th edition of Indian T20 Premier League 2023 will not end in a short period of time as there will be a total of 74 matches to be played between 10 teams. There will be 70 matches that will be played in group stages and 4 in the playoffs.
BCCI is trying to avoid the double game in a single day because it is not giving much TRP which is crucial to the revenue earned through broadcasting. This is the reason why IPL 2023 will continue to go on for more than 2 and a half months.
Talking about the formats, there will be no change in the formats of T20 Premier League 2023. It will likely go the same as IPL 2022, where the group stages will be played in a round-robin format. However, the group can be exchanged this time.
