Not March 23, As Claimed By BCCI Top Official, Report Says IPL 2025 To Start On… | Cricket News-OxBig News Network

The Indian Premier League 2025, 18th edition of the T20 extravaganza, will be a closely watched affair. There is huge curiosity among the fans about the season as the teams will bear a fresh look following a mega auction that took place in November last year. While teams were allowed a maximum of six retentions, including Right-To-Match option, the rest of the squad had to be formed via the auction. Some big names fetched massive sum and the bidding wars made the IPL 2025 all the more interesting. For the stats, Rishabh Pant turned out to be the costliest player ever sold in IPL auction history as he was picked by Lucknow Super Giants for a whopping INR 27 crore.

According to a report in Cricbuzz, the IPL 2025 will start on March 22 with a match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challenges Bengaluru. The report said defending champions KKR will face RCB, who announced their new skipper Rajat Patidar on Thursday, at Eden Gardens. Last year’s runners-up Sunrisers Hyderabad will also play their first game at home against Rajasthan Royals at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Uppal on March 23.

The report said, the final will be held in Kolkata on Sunday, May 25. 

The report further claimed that apart from the 10 regular centres – Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Lucknow, Mullanpur, Delhi, Jaipur, Kolkata and Hyderabad, Guwahati and Dharamsala will host matches too. 

Guwahati is likely to get a couple of Rajasthan Royals’ ‘home’ matches on March 26 and 30. Kolkata Knight Riders and Chennai Super Kings will be their opponents in the games. Dharamsala may host a couple of home games of Punjab Kings.

Earlier, on January 12, BCCI vice-president Rajeev Shukla, who attended the Special General Meeting in Mumbai, said, “IPL is going to start from March 23.”