Eden Gardens will host the IPL opener as well as the final, on May 25
Eden Gardens will host the tournament opener as well as the final, on May 25  •  BCCI
IPL 2025 is set to start on March 21 with Eden Gardens hosting both the season opener and the final on May 25. It is also understood that WPL 2025 will be held between February 7 and March 2.
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.
As has generally been the case, the home venue of the defending champions will host the opener and final. This season it’s Eden Gardens, home base of Kolkata Knight Riders who won IPL 2024. While Eden Gardens will also host Qualifier 2, the first two playoff matches – Qualifier 1 and Eliminator – will be played in Hyderabad.
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.
Four venues shortlisted for WPL
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.
Nagraj Gollapudi is news editor at ESPNcricinfo
