The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will host the 19th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), a Twenty20 franchise cricket tournament. The tournament is scheduled to run from March 28 through May 31, 2026 and includes 10 teams playing at multiple venues all over India. The reigning champion of IPL, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) from Bengaluru, Karnataka, is looking to defend its title. Other teams participating in the 2026 IPL will be Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Delhi Capitals (DC), Gujarat Titans (GT), Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), Mumbai Indians (MI), Punjab Kings (PBKS), and Rajasthan Royals (RR) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH).
Format
All 10 teams will play a total of 84 games during the IPL 2026 season, which includes 80 regular-season (or Round Robin) games and four playoffs. In the regular season, all 10 teams each will have 16 games compared to 14 games last year (2025). The four playoff games will be played as follows:
Playoff Matches
• Qualifier 1: This match is played between the first and second ranked teams after the IPL regular season wrap-up. The victor moves straight to the finals, while the losing side has an opportunity to compete again during Qualifier 2.
• Eliminator: This game features the third- and fourth-seed teams competing against one another with the winning team advancing into Qualifier 2.
• Qualifier 2: The loser of Qualifier 1 and the winner of the Eliminator will compete in this match with the winner moving on to the final.
• Final: The championship game will see Qualifier 1 vs. Qualifier 2.
IPL 2026 Venues
IPL matches will be held across several major cricket stadiums in India. Expected venues include:
These venues host matches for the respective home teams during the league stage.
Home stadiums
• DC – Arun Jaitley Stadium, New Delhi
• GT – Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad
• KKR – Eden Gardens, Kolkata
• LSG – Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium, Lucknow
• MI – Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai
• PBKS – Punjab Cricket Association New Stadium – New Chandigarh and Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium – Dharamshala
• RR – Barsapara Cricket Stadium, Guwahati and Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur
• RCB – M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru and Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium, Raipur
• SRH – Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, Hyderabad
Schedule
On March 28 – May 31, 2026, the IPL governing council has confirmed that the tournament will occur. However, the IPL schedule is expected to coincide with assembly elections scheduled to be held in India’s Assam, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal during April – May 2026 as a result of current legislative terms expiring. The stadiums within the states for the home venues of both Kolkata and Chennai (KKR and CSK, respectively) as well as the secondary home venue for RR (Guwahati) will also be affected by assembly elections. Due to both security concerns and concerns related to logistics, the entire schedule was not published right away. As of the time of this note, only those match-ups that fall within the first phase of the tournament (March 28 – April 12, 2026) have been announced by BCCI; the balance of matches will be provided once the elections are finalized.
IPL 2026 Fixtures and Results
match number
date
time (IST)
match
venue
result
Source: iplt20.com.
1
March 28
7:30 pm
RCB vs. SRH
M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru
2
March 29
MI vs. KKR
Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai
3
March 30
RR vs. CSK
Barsapara Cricket Stadium, Guwahati
4
March 31
PBKS vs. GT
Punjab Cricket Association New Stadium, New Chandigarh
5
April 1
LSG vs. DC
Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium, Lucknow
6
April 2
KKR vs. SRH
Eden Gardens, Kolkata
7
April 3
CSK vs. PBKS
M.A. Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai
8
April 4
3:30 pm
DC vs. MI
Arun Jaitley Stadium, New Delhi
9
GT vs. RR
Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad
10
April 5
SRH vs. LSG
Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, Hyderabad
11
RCB vs. CSK
12
April 6
KKR vs. PBKS
13
April 7
RR vs. MI
14
April 8
DC vs. GT
15
April 9
KKR vs. LSG
16
April 10
RR vs. RCB
17
April 11
PBKS vs. SRH
18
CSK vs. DC
19
April 12
LSG vs. GT
20
MI vs. RCB
As far as auction and squad
Each IPL franchise is allowed to have a maximum of 25 players on its squad along with a maximum of 8 players from abroad. Each of the 10 franchises retained a combined total of 173 players on its roster from the previous season before the 2026 season. 77 additional players on each team were acquired at the IPL Auction which took place on December 16, 2025 which had over 350 players available for selection.
Highlights
• In IPL 2026 auction, the highest price paid for an Australian all-rounder by KKR was $2.78 million (₹25.20 crore), making Cameron Green both the most expensive IPL player & the most expensive overseas IPL player signed.
• Also at this auction, Indian uncapped & domestic players Prashant Veer & Kartik Sharma, both signed by CSK for $1.57 million (₹14.20 crore), broke the records for being the most expensive uncapped & domestic players in IPL history.
• There were also several major trades amongst players prior to the auction including: Ravindra Jadeja (CSK to RR), Sanju Samson (RR to CSK), Sam Curran (CSK to RR), Mohammad Shami (SRH to LSG), Mayank Markande (KKR to MI), Arjun Tendulkar (MI to LSG), Nitish Rana (RR to DC), Sherfane Rutherford (GT to MI), Shardul Thakur (LSG to MI), Donovan Ferreira (DC to RR).
The final squads for all 10 franchises are listed in the table below.
IPL 2026 Squads List
franchise
Indian players
overseas players
total squad strength
*Player was signed after the auction.
Sources: IPL 2026 auction; IPL 2026 retained players list.
Chennai Super Kings
Ruturaj Gaikwad (captain), Anshul Kamboj, Gurjapneet Singh, MS Dhoni, Mukesh Choudhary, Ramakrishna Ghosh, Sanju Samson, Shivam Dube, Shreyas Gopal, Khaleel Ahmed, Ayush Mhatre, Urvil Patel, Kartik Sharma, Prashant Veer, Rahul Chahar, Sarfaraz Khan, Aman Khan
Jamie Overton, Nathan Ellis, Noor Ahmad, Dewald Brevis, Matt Henry, Akeal Hosein, Matthew Short, Zak Foulkes
25 (17 Indian; 8 overseas)
Delhi Capitals
Axar Patel (captain), Abhishek Porel, Ajay Mandal, Ashutosh Sharma, Karun Nair, KL Rahul, Kuldeep Yadav, Madhav Tiwari, Mukesh Kumar, Nitish Rana, Sameer Rizvi, T. Natarajan, Tripurana Vijay, Vipraj Nigam, Auqib Dar, Prithvi Shaw, Sahil Parakh
Dushmantha Chameera, Mitchell Starc, Tristan Stubbs, Pathum Nissanka, Kyle Jamieson, Lungisani Ngidi, Ben Duckett, David Miller
Gujarat Titans
Shubman Gill (captain), Anuj Rawat, Gurnoor Singh Brar, Ishant Sharma, Jayant Yadav, Kumar Kushagra, Manav Suthar, Mohammad Siraj, Mohammad Arshad Khan, Nishant Sindhu, Prasidh Krishna, R. Sai Kishore, Rahul Tewatia, Sai Sudharsan, Shahrukh Khan, Washington Sundar, Ashok Sharma, Prithviraj Yarra
Glenn Phillips, Jos Buttler, Kagiso Rabada, Jason Holder, Tom Banton, Luke Wood, Rashid Khan
25 (18 Indian; 7 overseas)
Kolkata Knight Riders
Ajinkya Rahane (captain), Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Anukul Roy, Harshit Rana, Manish Pandey, Ramandeep Singh, Rinku Singh, Umran Malik, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy, Tejasvi Singh, Akash Deep, Rahul Tripathi, Daksh Kamra, Sarthak Ranjan, Prashant Solanki, Kartik Tyagi
Rovman Powell, Sunil Narine, Cameron Green, Matheesha Pathirana, Blessing Muzarabani,* Rachin Ravindra, Finn Allen, Tim Seifert
Lucknow Super Giants
Rishabh Pant (captain), Abdul Samad, Akash Singh, Arjun Tendulkar, Arshin Kulkarni, Avesh Khan, Ayush Badoni, Digvesh Rathi, Himmat Singh, Manimaran Siddharth, Mayank Yadav, Mohammad Shami, Mohsin Khan, Prince Yadav, Shahbaz Ahmed, Mukul Choudhary, Akshat Raghuwanshi, Naman Tiwari
Aiden Markram, Matthew Breetzke, Mitchell Marsh, Nicholas Pooran, Josh Inglis, Anrich Nortje, Wanindu Hasaranga
Mumbai Indians
Hardik Pandya (captain), Ashwani Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Jasprit Bumrah, Mayank Markande, Naman Dhir, Raghu Sharma, Raj Angad Bawa, Robin Minz, Rohit Sharma, Shardul Thakur, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Mayank Rawat, Atharva Ankolekar, Mohammad Izhar, Danish Malewar
Allah Ghazanfar, Corbin Bosch, Mitchell Santner, Ryan Rickelton, Trent Boult, Will Jacks, Sherfane Rutherford, Quinton de Kock
Punjab Kings
Shreyas Iyer (captain), Arshdeep Singh, Harnoor Pannu, Harpreet Brar, Nehal Wadhera, Prabhsimran Singh, Priyansh Arya, Pyla Avinash, Shashank Singh, Suryansh Shedge, Vishnu Vinod, Vyshak Vijaykumar, Yash Thakur, Yuzvendra Chahal, Vishal Nishad, Pravin Dubey, Musheer Khan
Azmatullah Omarzai, Lockie Ferguson, Marco Jansen, Marcus Stoinis, Mitch Owen, Xavier Bartlett, Ben Dwarshuis, Cooper Connolly
Rajasthan Royals
Riyan Parag (captain), Dhruv Jurel, Ravindra Jadeja, Sandeep Sharma, Shubham Dubey, Tushar Deshpande, Vaibhav Suryavanshi, Yashaswi Jaiswal, Yudhvir Charak, Ravi Bishnoi, Ravi Singh, Sushant Mishra, Kuldeep Sen, Brijesh Sharma, Aman Rao Perala, Vignesh Puthur, Yash Raj Punja
Donovan Ferreira, Jofra Archer, Kwena Maphaka, Lhuan-dre Pretorius, Nandre Burger, Sam Curran, Shimron Hetmyer, Adam Milne
Royal Challengers Bengaluru
Rajat Patidar (captain), Abhinandan Singh, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Devdutt Padikkal, Jitesh Sharma, Krunal Pandya, Rasikh Dar, Suyash Sharma, Swapnil Singh, Virat Kohli, Yash Dayal, Venkatesh Iyer, Mangesh Yadav, Kanishk Chouhan, Vihaan Malhotra, Vicky Ostwal, Satvik Deswal
Jacob Bethell, Josh Hazlewood, Nuwan Thushara, Phil Salt, Romario Shepherd, Tim David, Jacob Duffy, Jordan Cox
Sunrisers Hyderabad
Abhishek Sharma, Aniket Verma, Harsh Dubey, Harshal Patel, Ishan Kishan, Jaydev Unadkat, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Smaran Ravichandran, Zeeshan Ansari, Salil Arora, Shivam Mavi, Krains Fuletra, Praful Hinge, Amit Kumar, Onkar Tarmale, Sakib Hussain, Shivang Kumar
Pat Cummins (captain), Brydon Carse, Eshan Malinga, Heinrich Klaasen, Kamindu Mendis, Travis Head, Liam Livingstone, Jack Edwards
Conclusion
The Indian Premier League 2026 stands as a testament to how cricket has transformed into a global entertainment powerhouse, blending sport, business, and culture into a single unified experience. Over the years, the IPL has not only revolutionized the way cricket is played but has also redefined how it is consumed by audiences worldwide. With its 19th edition, the league continues to push boundaries through innovation, technological advancements, and expanding global reach. The presence of world-class players, emerging young talent, and intense team rivalries ensures that IPL 2026 will deliver thrilling moments that resonate with fans across generations. Beyond the field, the league’s economic and digital impact highlights its significance as a major contributor to India’s sports economy and entertainment industry. As franchises evolve and strategies become more data-driven, the IPL continues to set new standards for professional leagues globally. Looking ahead, the future of IPL appears brighter than ever, with opportunities for expansion, deeper fan engagement, and enhanced viewing experiences. Whether you are a die-hard cricket fan or a casual viewer, IPL 2026 promises unmatched excitement, unforgettable performances, and a celebration of cricket at its finest, reinforcing its position as the crown jewel of T20 cricket worldwide.
FAQs
1. What is IPL 2026?
IPL 2026 is the 19th season of the Indian Premier League featuring 10 teams and 84 matches.
2. When will IPL 2026 start?
The tournament begins on March 28, 2026.
3. How many teams are in IPL 2026?
There are 10 teams competing in IPL 2026.
4. What is the format of IPL?
It follows a double round-robin format followed by playoffs.
5. Which team is the defending champion?
Royal Challengers Bengaluru are the defending champions.
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