2022 Indian Premier League
The 2022 Indian Premier League, also known as IPL 15 or, for backing reasons, Tata IPL 2022, is the fifteenth season of the Indian Premier League (IPL), a professional Twenty20 justice league established by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in 2007. The event is being played from 26 March 2022, and to be concluded with the final on 29 May 2022. The group stage of the event is being played entirely in the state of Maharashtra, with Mumbai and Pune hosting the matches. The full schedule of the event was blazoned on 6 March 2022.
The season saw the expansion of the league, with the addition of two new votes. Thus, this was the alternate season to have ten brigades, after the 2011 event. Chennai Super Lords are the defending titleholders, having won their fourth title during the former season.
Background
Although earlier reports suggested the addition of two further brigades in the former season, the BCCI at their 89th AGM blazoned that the expansion of the league would do only in 2022. In August 2021, the BCCI verified that two new votes would join the league starting from the 2022 season. It was also blazoned that the votes would be grounded in two of the six metropolises shortlisted by the BCCI; Ahmedabad, Cuttack, Dharamshala, Guwahati, Indore, and Lucknow.
In unrestricted bidding held on 25 October 2021, RPSG Group and CVC Capital won flings for the two brigades. RPSG paid ₹ crore (US$ 930 million) for Lucknow, whereas CVC won Ahmedabad for ₹ crore (US$ 740 million). The Lucknow platoon was named Lucknow Super Titans on 24 January 2022, whereas the Ahmedabad platoon was named Gujarat Elephants on 9 February 2022.
Vivo pulled out as the title guarantor of the event on 11 January 2022. Vivo, having preliminarily pulled out as guarantors in 2020, had inked a contract as title guarantors till 2023. The Tata Group was named as the title guarantor for the remainder of Vivo's contract.
Format
With the preface of the new brigades, a ten-platoon format was created. This format consists of 74 matches and was introduced as retaining the former format would affect 94 matches, significantly lesser than the 60 matches from the former season, where brigades contend in a double round-robin event.
The ten brigades are divided into two groups of five. In the group stage, each platoon plays 14 games facing the other four brigades in their group two times each (one home and one down game), four brigades in the other group formerly, and the remaining platoon two times. The groups for the event were blazoned on 25 February 2022.
Each platoon plays the platoon in the same row and the same column doubly, and all others formerly. For case, Mumbai Indians will play Chennai Super Lords and the other Group A brigades doubly but the other brigades from Group B (Sunrisers Hyderabad, Royal Contenders Bangalore, Punjab Lords and Gujarat Elephants) only formerly. Also, Chennai will play Mumbai and the other Group B brigades doubly but all other brigades from Group A only formerly. The format used is analogous to the one used in 2011, with the only difference being that the brigades were drawn according to seedings rather than being drawn aimlessly. The numbers in the gap denote the number of titles won by the platoon.
Venues
Three venues in Mumbai and one in Pune will host the league stage matches. The Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai and the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai will host 20 matches each, whereas Mumbai's Brabourne Stadium and the MCA International Stadium in Pune will host 15 matches each. Every platoon will play four matches each at the Wankhede and the DY Patil Stadium, and three matches each at the Brabourne and the MCA Stadium.
