IPL 2026 — schedule, format and how the season is decided

Format

IPL 2026 runs as a 10-team, 74-match season. The league stage comprises 70 league fixtures played across home and away rounds. Each franchise plays 14 league matches — seven at home, seven away. The top four teams on the points table advance to the playoffs.

The playoff structure is unchanged from recent seasons. The first-placed team plays the second-placed team in Qualifier 1, with the winner advancing directly to the final. The third-placed team plays the fourth-placed team in the Eliminator, with the loser knocked out. The Qualifier 1 loser then plays the Eliminator winner in Qualifier 2 for the right to meet the Qualifier 1 winner in the final.

Schedule shape

The season opens in late March and concludes with the final in late May. The tournament follows the same weekly rhythm as previous editions: most matchdays carry a single evening fixture, with one or two afternoon slots per week to accommodate broadcast partners.

Double-headers, where two matches are played on the same day, are scheduled for weekends and festival windows. Rest days are built in around travel and broadcast rotations, and the fixtures are spread across ten venues to keep the home advantage meaningful for each franchise.

Venues

Each franchise plays its home matches at its primary venue, with overflow fixtures occasionally moved to a secondary ground in the same city. The ten home venues in IPL 2026 are:

• MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai — Chennai Super Kings
• Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai — Mumbai Indians
• M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru — Royal Challengers Bengaluru
• Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad — Sunrisers Hyderabad
• Eden Gardens, Kolkata — Kolkata Knight Riders
• Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur — Rajasthan Royals
• Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi — Delhi Capitals
• PCA Stadium, Mohali — Punjab Kings
• Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Stadium, Lucknow — Lucknow Super Giants
• Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad — Gujarat Titans

Surface behaviour, boundary size and average scores for each ground are tracked separately on the pitch desk — readers can find the venue-by-venue brief on the pitch and weather page.

Points and standings

Teams earn two points for a win, one point for a no-result, and zero for a loss. When teams are level on points, Net Run Rate (NRR) is the primary tiebreaker. NRR is calculated as the difference between a team's overall scoring rate and the scoring rate it concedes across the season.

For NRR purposes, only completed overs count. A team bowled out in under 20 overs is credited with the full 20 overs for the calculation. A no-result match does not affect NRR for either side.

The playoff qualification race typically resolves in the final week of the league stage. Three teams usually enter the final week with a mathematical chance of finishing in the top four; the practical question for fantasy readers is usually which team holds the tiebreaker.

Playoffs

The four-team playoff structure is described in the format section above. The practical points worth noting:

• Qualifier 1 offers a second chance to the loser — they play Qualifier 2.
• The Eliminator is a knockout: the loser is out of the tournament.
• The final is a single match, with a reserve day allocated for weather disruption.
• If a team finishes the league stage on top of the table and wins the final, they are crowned champions with no second chance required at any playoff stage.

Playing conditions

All matches follow the standard T20 playing conditions adopted by the BCCI for franchise cricket. Powerplay is overs 1 to 6 with a maximum of two fielders allowed outside the 30-yard circle. The strategic timeout is a single 2.5-minute timeout per innings per side, taken between overs 6 and 14.

DRS is available in every match, with two reviews per innings per side. Reviews retained from the first innings do not carry over to the second innings.

Squad rules

Each franchise is required to register a squad of no fewer than 18 players and no more than 25. A minimum of 8 players must be Indian, and a maximum of 4 overseas players can be named in the playing XI. The Impact Player rule remains in place for IPL 2026: each side may substitute one nominated player at any point during the match, with the substitution capped at the 14th over of the first innings or the batting team's batting powerplay.

What this means for fantasy readers

Three tournament-level points matter for fantasy selection across the season. First, the playoff race creates a "must-win" pressure window in the second half of the season — teams under pressure tend to hold their best players in their expected roles, which improves confidence labels on the players desk. Second, the home advantage at each venue is meaningful — fantasy selection should weight home matches more heavily than away matches when comparing two players at similar cost. Third, the strategic timeout creates a decision point that affects captaincy orders and death-bowling changes; the captain calls comparison on the homepage takes this into account.

What's different this season

The biggest practical change for readers is the tightening of the Impact Player rule around the 14th-over mark. Fantasy readers who tracked Impact Player substitutions last season will recall the late-match surprise substitutions; this season, the rule's stricter timing window is intended to limit those surprises. The on-pitch effect is that bowling captains can plan their overs more confidently in the second half of the innings.

Where to read next

The match centre carries the daily fixture list with probable XIs and confidence labels. The teams desk covers squad combinations, role stability and venue records for each franchise. The pitch desk publishes venue-by-venue briefs throughout the season. The fantasy tips desk walks through how to read playing conditions and apply them to selection.