What is the IPL?

The IPL is the popular name for the Indian Premier League. It is a franchise-based Twenty20 cricket league held in India, which has been running since 2008.

Ten teams compete in a group stage, with the top four best performing teams going through to the playoffs to decide a winner.

When does the IPL 2025 start?

The 2025 IPL group stage starts on Saturday 22nd March and continues through till Sunday 18th May.

Then there are playoffs, which begin on Tuesday 20th May and conclude with the IPL final on Sunday 25th May.

What is the opening IPL match?

The first game of the new IPL season on Saturday 25th March sees Kolkata Knight Riders take on Royal Challengers Bengaluru.

It will take place at Eden Gardens in Kolkata. As the Knight Riders are the defending champions they will host both the opening ceremony and the final.

Where will the IPL be played?

Some 13 cities across India will play host to IPL games during the 2025 season.

There are three teams whose games will be split between two host cities. Punjab Kings will play in both Dharamshala and Mullanpur, Rajasthan Royals games will be split between Guwahati and Jaipur, while Delhi Capitals will play games in Delhi and Visakhapatnam.

Here’s a look at the cities involved and the stadiums that will be packed out with cricket fans.

City	Stadium	Capacity	Home Team
Ahmedabad	Narendra Modi Stadium	132,000	Gujarat Titans
Bengaluru	M. Chinnaswamy Stadium	35,000	Royal Challengers Bengaluru
Chennai	M. A. Chidambaram Stadium	39,000	Chennai Super Kings
Delhi	Arun Jaitley Stadium	35,200	Delhi Capitals
Dharamshala	HPCA Cricket Stadium	21,200	Punjab Kings
Guwahati	Barsapara Cricket Stadium	46,000	Rajasthan Royals
Hyderabad	Rajiv Gandhi Stadium	55,000	Sunrisers Hyderabad
Jaipur	Sawai Mansingh Stadium	25,000	Rajasthan Royals
Kolkata	Eden Gardens	68,000	Kolkata Knight Riders
Lucknow	BRSABV Ekana Cricket Stadium	50,000	Lucknow Super Giants
Mullanpur	Maharaja Yadavindra Singh Stadium	38,000	Punjab Kings
Mumbai	Wankhede Stadium	33,108	Mumbai Indians
Visakhapatnam	ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium	27,500	Delhi Capitals

Which teams are in the 2025 IPL?

Here are the ten teams that will compete in the IPL in 2025, along with information regarding their captains and head coaches.

Team	Captain	Head Coach
Chennai Super Kings	Ruturaj Gaikwad	Stephen Fleming
Delhi Capitals	TBA	Hemang Badani
Gujarat Titans	Shubman Gill	Ashish Nehra
Kolkata Knight Riders	Ajinkya Rahane	Chandrakant Pandit
Lucknow Super Giants	Rishabh Pant	Justin Langer
Mumbai Indians	Hardik Pandya	Mahela Jayawardene
Punjab Kings	Shreyas Iyer	Ricky Ponting
Rajasthan Royals	Sanju Samson	Rahul Dravid
Royal Challengers Bengaluru	Rajat Patidar	Andy Flower
Sunrisers Hyderabad	Pat Cummins	Daniel Vettori

How does the IPL format work?

The ten franchises have been split into two groups which can be seen below.

Group A	Group B
Chennai Super Kings	Mumbai Indians
Kolkata Knight Riders	Sunrisers Hyderabad
Rajasthan Royals	Gujarat Titans
Royal Challengers Bangalore	Dehli Capitals
Punjab Kings	Lucknow Super Giants

Each team plays the other teams in their group twice. They will also play twice against the team from the same row in the other group, along with a single match against the other four teams.

So in total, each side plays 14 games during the group stage.

There is a unified points table and the top four teams at the end of the group stage, progress to the playoffs.

The teams that finish first and second play in Qualifier 1, with the winner reaching the final.

Then the teams that are third and fourth meet in the Eliminator match. The winner goes though to Qualifier 2, meeting the loser from Qualifier 1, with a place in the final at stake.

What happened in IPL 2024?

The group stage of the 2024 IPL finished as follows.

Position	Team	Points
1	Kolkata Knight Riders	20
2	Sunrisers Hyderabad	17
3	Rajasthan Royals	17
4	Royal Challengers Bengaluru	14
5	Chennai Super Kings	14
6	Dehli Capitals	14
7	Lucknow Super Giants	14
8	Gujarat Titans	12
9	Punjab Kings	10
10	Mumbai Indians	8

In the playoffs Kolkata Knight Riders beat Sunrisers Hyderabad in Qualifier 1 to progress to the final.

Rajasthan Royals beat Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the Eliminator, but were then defeated by Sunrisers Hyderabad in Qualifier 2.

In the final, Kolkata Knight Riders once again reigned supreme against Sunrisers Hyderabad, as they beat them for the second time in a week.

Who has won the IPL in past seasons?

In the 17 IPL seasons there have been seven different champions and an additional four teams that have been runners-up.

Due to the franchise element of the Indian Premier League, there are teams which are now defunct, such as Deccan Chargers. Here are the past winners and runners-up in each IPL season.

IPL Season	Winner	Runner-up
2008	Rajasthan Royals	Chennai Super Kings
2009	Deccan Chargers	Royal Challengers Bangalore
2010	Chennai Super Kings	Mumbai Indians
2011	Chennai Super Kings	Royal Challengers Bangalore
2012	Kolkata Knight Riders	Chennai Super Kings
2013	Mumbai Indians	Chennai Super Kings
2014	Kolkata Knight Riders	Punjab Kings
2015	Mumbai Indians	Chennai Super Kings
2016	Sunrisers Hyderabad	Royal Challengers Bangalore
2017	Mumbai Indians	Rising Pune Supergiant
2018	Chennai Super Kings	Sunrisers Hyderabad
2019	Mumbai Indians	Chennai Super Kings
2020	Mumbai Indians	Dehli Capitals
2021	Chennai Super Kings	Kolkata Knight Riders
2022	Gujarat Titans	Rajasthan Royals
2023	Chennai Super Kings	Gujarat Titans
2024	Kolkata Knight Riders	Sunrisers Hyderabad

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Where can I watch IPL 2025?

Cricket fans in the UK can follow all the action in the IPL on Sky Sports.

Games will be split between Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Cricket, with the option to watch on your TV or enjoy an IPL live stream on your mobile device.

What are the IPL betting odds?

One of the aspects of the IPL that makes it interesting, especially from a betting perspective, is a system that sees the team rosters have a major refresh every year. 

This has created a situation when Mumbai Indians, who finished 10th last season, start as the favourites in the IPL betting for 2025 at 4/1.

Past form does of course count for something, with the reigning champions Kolkata Knight Riders the third favourites in the IPL odds at 6/1. They are behind the most successful team in the history of the competition, Chennai Super Kings at 5/1.

Here are the latest odds in the IPL betting.

IPL Team	IPL Winner Odds	IPL Finalist Odds
Mumbai Indians	4/1	15/8
Chennai Super Kings	5/1	5/2
Kolkata Knight Riders	6/1	13/5
Royal Challengers Bengaluru	17/2	10/3
Sunrisers Hyderabad	9/1	10/3
Lucknow Super Giants	10/1	4/1
Delhi Capitals	10/1	4/1
Gujarat Titans	10/1	4/1
Punjab Kings	11/1	9/2
Rajasthan Royals	12/1	9/2

How does the IPL auction work?

The IPL auction ensures that each team has a fresh look for every season. At the last auction in November 2024, franchises were allowed to retain a maximum of six players from their previous year’s squad. Only five of these players could be capped.

Each team is given the same budget for the auction and were deducted a specific amount from their purse, for every player they retained.

Players register to be listed in the auction, with some 1,574 being available for purchase for the 2025 IPL season.

The Indian international wicket-keeper batsman Rishabh Pant became the most expensive player in IPL auction history, with Lucknow Super Giants paying £2.54million for him.

How do the 2025 IPL squads look?

After the auction, the squads for the 2025 IPL season now look like this.

Chennai Super Kings

Ruturaj Gaikwad (captain), Noor Ahmad, Khaleel Ahmed, Ravichandran Ashwin, Vansh Bedi, Mukesh Choudhary, Devon Conway, Sam Curran, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Shivam Dube, Nathan Ellis, Ramakrishna Ghosh, Shreyas Gopal, Deepak Hooda, Ravindra Jadeja, Anshul Kamboj, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Jamie Overton, Matheesha Pathirana, Shaik Rasheed, Rachin Ravindra, Vijay Shankar, Andre Siddarth, Gurjapneet Singh, Rahul Tripathi

Dehli Capitals

Harry Brook, Dushmantha Chameera, Faf du Plessis, Donovan Ferreira, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Mukesh Kumar, Manvanth Kumar, Ajay Mandal, Karun Nair, Darshan Nalkande, Thangarasu Natarajan, Vipraj Nigam, Axar Patel, Abhishek Porel, KL Rahul, Sameer Rizvi, Ashutosh Sharma, Mohit Sharma, Mitchell Starc, Madhav Tiwari, Tristan Stubbs, Tripurana Vijay, Kuldeep Yadav

Gujarat Titans

Shubman Gill (captain), Gurnoor Brar, Jos Buttler, Gerald Coetzee, Karim Janat, Arshad Khan, Rashid Khan, Shahrukh Khan, Kulwant Khejroliya, Sai Kishore, Prasidh Krishna, Kumar Kushagra, Mahipal Lomror, Glenn Phillips, Kagiso Rabada, Anuj Rawat, Sherfane Rutherford, Ishant Sharma, Nishant Sindhu, Mohammed Siraj, Sai Sudharsan, Washington Sundar, Manav Suthar, Rahul Tewatia, Jayant Yadav

Kolkata Knight Riders

Ajinkya Rahane (captain), Moeen Ali, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakravarthy, Quinton de Kock, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Venkatesh Iyer, Spencer Johnson, Umran Malik, Mayank Markande, Sunil Narine, Anrich Nortje, Manish Pandey, Rovman Powell, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Harshit Rana, Anukul Roy, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Rinku Singh, Luvnith Sisodia

Lucknow Super Giants

Rishabh Pant (captain), Shahbaz Ahmed, Ayush Badoni, Ravi Bishnoi, Matthew Breetzke, Yuvraj Chaudhary, Akash Deep, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Avesh Khan, Mohsin Khan, Arshin Kulkarni, Shamar Joseph, Aryan Juyal, Aiden Markram, Mitchell Marsh, David Miller, Nicholas Pooran, Abdul Samad, Manimaran Siddharth, Akash Singh, Digvesh Singh, Himmat Singh, Mayank Yadav, Prince Yadav

Mumbai Indians

Hardik Pandya (captain), Raj Angad Bawa, Trent Boult, Jasprit Bumrah, Deepak Chahar, Naman Dhir, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Will Jacks, Bevon Jacobs, Ashwani Kumar, Robin Minz, Vignesh Puthur, Satyanarayana Raju, Ryan Rickelton, Mitchell Santner, Karn Sharma, Rohit Sharma, Krishnan Shrijith, Arjun Tendulkar, Reece Topley, Tilak Varma, Corbin Bosch, Suryakumar Yadav

Punjab Kings

Shreyas Iyer (captain), Priyansh Arya, Pyla Avinash, Xavier Bartlett, Harpreet Brar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Praveen Dubey, Lockie Ferguson, Aaron Hardie, Josh Inglis, Marco Jansen, Musheer Khan, Glenn Maxwell, Azmatullah Omarzai, Kuldeep Sen, Suryansh Shedge, Arshdeep Singh, Harnoor Singh, Prabhsimran Singh, Shashank Singh, Marcus Stoinis, Yash Thakur, Vishnu Vinod, Nehal Wadhera, Vijaykumar Vyshak

Rajasthan Royals

Sanju Samson (captain), Jofra Archer, Yudhvir Charak, Tushar Deshpande, Shubham Dubey, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Wanindu Hasaranga, Shimron Hetmyer, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jurel, Kumar Kartikeya, Akash Madhwal, Kwena Maphaka, Riyan Parag, Nitish Rana, Kunal Rathore, Ashok Sharma, Sandeep Sharma, Vaibhav Suryavanshi, Maheesh Theekshana

Royal Challengers Bengaluru

Rajat Patidar (captain), Virat Kohli, Jacob Bethell, Manoj Bhandage, Swastik Chikara, Rasikh Salam Dar, Tim David, Yash Dayal, Josh Hazlewood, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Liam Livingstone, Lungi Ngidi, Devdutt Padikkal, Krunal Pandya, Mohit Rathee, Phil Salt, Jitesh Sharma, Suyash Sharma, Romario Shepherd, Abhinandan Singh, Swapnil Singh, Nuwan Thushara

Sunrisers Hyderabad

Pat Cummins (captain), Zeeshan Ansari, Sachin Baby, Brydon Carse, Rahul Chahar, Travis Head, Ishan Kishan, Heinrich Klaasen, Eshan Malinga, Abhinav Manohar, Kamindu Mendis, Harshal Patel, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Mohammad Shami, Abhishek Sharma, Simarjeet Singh, Atharva Taide, Jaydev Unadkat, Aniket Verma, Adam Zampa

IPL betting tips and analysis

We will have IPL betting predictions available throughout the season from our cricket betting expert Ed Hawkins.

In the meanwhile, let’s take a closer look at the favourites in the IPL odds.

Mumbai Indians – 4/1 favourites 

After such a poor season in 2024, Mumbai Indians now find themselves as favourites in the IPL betting. The thought is that they have addressed the issues that existed in their squad during the auction period, particularly the deficiency in their bowling attack when Jasprit Bumrah was out. With Bumrah injured for the first few games, we will quickly get to see how they cope without him. Hardik Pandya will lead the way, having won the IPL in 2022 with Gujarat Titans.

Chennai Super Kings – 5/1 second favourites

The second favourites are the Chennai Super Kings, who just missed out on a playoff place in 2024. They retained Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ravindra Jadeja, Matheesha Pathirana, Shivam Dube and MD Dhoni. The Super Kings were also able to re-sign some of the key players they released such as Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra. The Super Kings look to be strong in all departments and it would be a surprise if they did not make the playoffs.

Kolkata Knight Riders – 6/1 third favourites

The holders are the third favourites, following a dominant season in 2024. Unsurprisingly, the Knight Riders maxed out their retention capacity, keeping the likes of Rinku Singh, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakravathy and Andre Russell. Only two teams have ever defended the IPL, but the signing of new captain Ajinkya Rahane has added even more experience into their ranks.

Name the finalists IPL betting

As well as IPL betting markets being available for the winners and reaching the final, you can also try to predict the two finalists.

Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians are ranked as the likeliest finalists at 12/1. 

Here are some of the most probable combinations for the IPL final betting, with others available.

IPL Finalists	Odds
Chennai Super Kings & Mumbai Indians	12/1
Kolkata Knight Riders & Mumbai Indians	14/1
Chennai Super Kings & Kolkata Knight Riders	16/1
Mumbai Indians & Royal Challengers Bengaluru	16/1
Mumbai Indians & Sunrisers Hyderabad	18/1
Chennai Super Kings & Royal Challengers Bengaluru	18/1
Lucknow Super Giants & Mumbai Indians	20/1
Mumbai Indians & Rajasthan Royals	20/1
Gujarat Titans & Mumbai Indians	20/1
Kolkata Knight Riders & Royal Challengers Bengaluru	20/1
Dehli Capitals & Mumbai Indians	20/1