The world’s premier tournament, Indian Premier League (IPL) will kick-off on March 29 (Sunday) with the opening match scheduled to be played between Mumbai Indians (MI) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) at the iconic Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. The IPL final is scheduled on May 24 (Sunday).
The double-headers on Saturdays is now a thing of the past but two consecutive games will be played on Sundays similar to the previous editions of the tourney except for the first and last days of the league stage.
Meanwhile, the inaugural IPL All-Star game, which was actually expected to be staged three days ahead of the start of IPL 2020, has been postponed to the end of the tournament. The IPL GC chairman Brijesh Patel confirmed the news while speaking to Cricbuzz.
All-Stars game which was proposed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will be played annually.
All-stars game not called off: IPL GC chairman Brijesh Patel
Ignoring widespread speculations that the One-off exhibition game has been called off, Patel clarified by saying that they have not called off the game but postponed it.
The exhibition game would see franchises belonging to the South and West part of India namely Chennai Super Kings, Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bangalore and Sunrisers Hyderabad locking horns with the players from the North-East based franchises- Kolkata Knight Riders, Rajasthan Royals, Kings XI Punjab and Delhi Capitals respectively.
“We are not calling it off, it has just been postponed to the end of the tournament. We wanted to see how the players are performing, and on the basis of that, form the teams for the All-Star match,” Brijesh Patel added in a statement.
However, as per a report in Mumbai Mirror, the IPL franchises had held reservation against the scheduled All-Star exhibition match as they didn’t want to risk losing their key players to injury.
This decision was taken during the IPL Governing Council on January 28 meeting without holding discussions with the IPL franchises.