IPL 2023: Format, venues, fixtures, squads, streaming details, trivia and all you need to know

The cricketing carnival that is the Indian Premier League (IPL) is just a few days away from kickoff, with less than a week remaining for the opening game between Gujarat Titans and Chennai Super Kings.

GT, who won the title on debut last season, face off against MS Dhoni’s CSK at Ahmedabad’s Narendra Modi Stadium on Friday, 31 March, the match kickstarting the 16th edition of the cash-rich league.

The IPL caravan has managed to roll on despite facing multiple hurdles along the way, especially due to the COVID pandemic that that engulfed the entire world in 2020. The tournament, however, has had to make some modifications for it to be conducted, whether it is shifting the event to the UAE in 2020 and 2021 to hosting the tournament in select cities in 2022 to minimise inter-city travel and reduce chances of players getting infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Read | IPL winners and runners-up list from 2008 to 2022

This year, however, fans will witness the IPL return to format that existed before the pandemic along with the introduction of some new rules that the BCCI hopes will make the tournament all the more appealing.

From squads and full schedule to format and new rules, here’s everything you need to know about the 16th season of the Indian Premier League:

Venues:

Among the major changes this season is the return to the home-and-away format; the tournament had been shifted to the UAE for the entirety of the 2020 season and in the second half of 2021, while the first half of the 2021 season along with the 2022 edition had taken place in select cities in India.

Here are the venues that serve as the home bases of the ten participating teams that will be in use this season:

Gujarat Titans: Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad.

Chennai Super Kings: MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai.

Mumbai Indians: Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai.

Kolkata Knight Riders: Eden Gardens, Kolkata.

Sunrisers Hyderabad: Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad.

Rajasthan Royals: Sawai Man Singh Stadium, Jaipur.

Royal Challengers Bangalore: M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru.

Delhi Capitals: Arun Jaitley Stadium, New Delhi.

Lucknow Super Giants: Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium.

Punjab Kings: IS Bindra PCA Stadium, Mohali.

Besides these ten stadiums, Punjab Kings and Rajasthan Royals will play some of their home games at the HPCA Stadium in Dharamsala and Barsapara Cricket Stadium in Guwahati respectively, making it a total of 12 venues in this IPL season.

Duration, total matches and spectators

A many as 74 matches will take place in the 16th season spanning nearly two months from 31 March to 29 May — or 52 match days to be precise. The season will have 18 double headers, with the afternoon games starting at 3.30 pm IST and evening matches at 7.30 pm — which is the standard start time for games on regular match days.

Format

The format will remain the same as last year — ten teams divided into two groups of five. Each team plays a total of 14 matches in the round-robin stage. A team plays each of the remaining four teams in its group twice on a home-and-away basis. As for the other group, a team will face four sides once and the remaining team twice.

The top four teams progress to the playoffs — the top two sides locking horns in Qualifier 1 in which the winner progresses directly into the final, and the third and fourth-placed sides facing off in the Eliminator, in the the loser goes home. The loser of Qualifier 1 and the winner of the Eliminator then face off in Qualifier 2 for a chance to meet the winner of Qualifier 1 in the final.

New Rules

There are a number of new rules introduced this season:

— Playing XI at toss: Teams can now name their Playing XI after the toss, unlike in past editions of the IPL or in international cricket where the team sheets must be ready by toss.

— Impact Player: Besides the Playing XI, teams will also name four substitute players, one of whom can be called upon as an Impact Player after the start of play, replacing either a batter or a bowler depending on the match situation. The league has introduced this rule in an effort to “add a new tactical, strategic dimension” to the game. The rule has already been piloted in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.

— Reviewing wides and no-balls: The IPL has hoped to do away with the sight of angry captains at the dugout fuming over a contentious call from the umpire by including wides and no-balls in the ambit of the Decision Review System this season, something that has already been implemented in the inaugural Women’s Premier League.

Click here to read about the new rules in IPL 2023 in detail

Full Squads

Chennai Super Kings (CSK): Bhagath Varma (INR 20 lakh), Ajay Mandal (INR 20 lakh), Sisanda Magala (Rs 50 lakh), Nishant Sindhu (INR 60 lakh), Shaik Rasheed (INR 20 lakh), Ben Stokes (INR 16.25 crore), Ajinkya Rahane (INR 50 lakh), MS Dhoni (c), Devon Conway, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ambati Rayudu, Subhranshu Senapati, Moeen Ali, Shivam Dube, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Dwaine Pretorius, Mitchell Santner, Ravindra Jadeja, Tushar Deshpande, Mukesh Chowdhary, Matheesha Pathirana, Simarjeet Singh, Deepak Chahar, Prashant Solanki, Maheesh Theekshana

Mumbai Indians (MI): Raghav Goyal (INR 20 lakh), Nehal Wadhera (INR 20 lakh), Shams Mulani (INR 20 lakh), Vishnu Vinod (INR 20 lakh), Duan Jansen (INR 20 lakh), Piyush Chawla (INR 50 lakh), Jhye Richardson (INR 1.5 crore), Cameron Green (INR 17.5 crore), Rohit Sharma (c), Tim David, Ramandeep Singh, Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Tristan Stubbs, Dewald Brevis, Jofra Archer, Arjun Tendulkar, Arshad Khan, Kumar Kartikeya, Hrithik Shokeen, Jason Behrendorff, Akash Madhwal

Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH): Anmolpreet Singh (INR 20 lakh), Akeal Hosein (INR 1 crore), Nitish Kumar Reddy (INR 20 lakh), Mayank Dagar (INR 1.8 crore), Upendra Yadav (INR 25 lakh), Sanvir Singh (INR 20 lakh), Samarth Vyas (INR 20 lakh), Vivrant Sharma (INR 2.6 crore), Mayank Markande (INR 50 lakh), Adil Rashid (INR 2 crore), Heinrich Klaasen (INR 5.25 crore), Mayank Agarwal (INR 8.25 crore), Harry Brook (INR 13.25 crore), Abdul Samad, Aiden Markram, Rahul Tripathi, Glenn Phillips, Abhishek Sharma, Marco Jansen, Washington Sundar, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Kartik Tyagi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, T Natarajan, Umran Malik

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB): Sonu Yadav (INR 20 lakh), Avinash Singh (INR 60 lakh), Rajan Kumar (INR 70 lakh), Manoj Bhandage (INR 20 lakh), Will Jacks (INR 3.2 crore), Himanshu Sharma (INR 20 lakh), Reece Topley (INR 1.9 crore), Faf du Plessis (c), Virat Kohli, Suyash Prabhudessai, Rajat Patidar, Dinesh Karthik, Anuj Rawat, Finn Allen, Glenn Maxwell, Wanindu Hasaranga, Shahbaz Ahmed, Harshal Patel, David Willey, Karn Sharma, Mahipal Lomror, Mohammed Siraj, Josh Hazlewood, Siddarth Kaul, Akash Deep

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR): Shakib Al Hasan (INR 1.5 crore), Mandeep Singh (INR 50 lakh), Litton Das (INR 50 lakh), Kulwant Khejroliya (INR 20 lakh), David Wiese (INR 1 crore), Suyash Sharma (INR 20 lakh), Vaibhav Arora (INR 60 lakh), N. Jagadeesan (INR 90 lakh), Shreyas Iyer (c), Nitish Rana, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Venkatesh Iyer, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Shardul Thakur, Lockie Ferguson, Umesh Yadav, Tim Southee, Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy, Anukul Roy, Rinku Singh

Gujarat Titans (GT): Mohit Sharma (INR 50 lakh), Joshua Little (INR 4.4 crore), Urvil Patel (INR 20 lakh), Shivam Mavi (INR 6 crore), KS Bharat (INR 1.2 crore), Odean Smith (INR 50 lakh), Kane Williamson (INR 2 crore), Hardik Pandya (c), Shubman Gill, David Miller, Abhinav Manohar, Sai Sudharsan, Wriddhiman Saha, Matthew Wade, Rashid Khan, Rahul Tewatia, Vijay Shankar, Mohammed Shami, Alzarri Joseph, Yash Dayal, Pradeep Sangwan, Darshan Nalkande, Jayant Yadav, R Sai Kishore, Noor Ahmad

Rajasthan Royals (RR): Joe Root (INR 1 crore), Abdul P A (INR 20 lakh), Akash Vashisht (INR 20 lakh), Murugan Ashwin (INR 20 lakh), KM Asif (INR 30 lakh), Adam Zampa (INR 1.5 crore), Kunal Rathore (INR 20 lakh), Donovan Ferreira (INR 50 lakh), Jason Holder (INR 5.75 crore), Sanju Samson (c), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shimron Hetmyer, Devdutt Padikkal, Jos Buttler, Dhruv Jurel, Riyan Parag, Prasidh Krishna, Trent Boult, Obed McCoy, Navdeep Saini, Kuldeep Sen, Kuldip Yadav, R Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, KC Cariappa

Punjab Kings (PBKS): Shivam Singh (INR 20 lakh), Mohit Rathee (INR 20 lakh), Vidwath Kaverappa (INR 20 lakh), Harpreet Bhatia (INR 40 lakh), Sikandar Raza (INR 50 lakh), Sam Curran (INR 18.5 crore), Shikhar Dhawan (c), Shahrukh Khan, Jonny Bairstow, Prabhsimran Singh, Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Jitesh Sharma, Raj Bawa, Rishi Dhawan, Liam Livingstone, Atharva Taide, Arshdeep Singh, Baltej Singh, Nathan Ellis, Kagiso Rabada, Rahul Chahar, Harpreet Brar

Lucknow Super Giants (LSG): Yudhvir Charak (INR 20 lakh), Naveen-ul-Haq (INR 50 lakh), Swapnil Singh (INR 20 lakh), Prerak Mankad (INR 20 lakh), Amit Mishra (INR 50 lakh), Daniel Sams (INR 75 lakh), Romario Shepherd (INR 50 lakh), Yash Thakur (INR 45 lakh), Jaydev Unadkat (INR 50 lakh), Nicholas Pooran (INR 16 crore), KL Rahul (c), Ayush Badoni, Karan Sharma, Manan Vohra, Quinton de Kock, Marcus Stoinis, Krishnappa Gowtham, Deepak Hooda, Kyle Mayers, Krunal Pandya, Avesh Khan, Mohsin Khan, Mark Wood, Mayank Yadav, Ravi Bishnoi.

Delhi Capitals (DC): Rilee Rossouw (INR 4.6 crore), Manish Pandey (INR 2.4 crore), Mukesh Kumar (INR 5.5 crore), Ishant Sharma (INR 50 lakh), Phil Salt (INR 2 crore), David Warner (c), Prithvi Shaw, Ripal Patel, Rovman Powell, Sarfaraz Khan, Yash Dhull, Mitchell Marsh, Lalit Yadav, Axar Patel, Anrich Nortje, Chetan Sakariya, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Khaleel Ahmed, Lungi Ngidi, Mustafizur Rahman, Aman Khan, Kuldeep Yadav, Praveen Dubey, Vicky Ostwal

Full schedule

Meet the captains

Gujarat Titans: Hardik Pandya

Chennai Super Kings: MS Dhoni

Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma

Kolkata Knight Riders: Nitish Rana

Sunrisers Hyderabad: Aiden Markram

Rajasthan Royals: Sanju Samson

Delhi Capitals: David Warner

Royal Challengers Bangalore: Faf du Plessis

Lucknow Super Giants: KL Rahul

Punjab Kings: Shikhar Dhawan

Broadcast and online streaming details

You can follow the live telecast of IPL 2023 on the Star Sports network. The digital streaming rights however, has gone to Viacom18 this season, as a result of which you can catch live action on JioCinema, with Reliance Jio adding that the entire season will be streamed on that platform for free at 4K resolution.