The massive opening ceremony of IPL 2025 is believed to be a star-studded spectacle at Kolkatas Eden Gardens. The IPL opening ceremony is scheduled to begin on March 22. Along with the trio, expected at the ceremony are Vicky Kaushal, Shraddha Kapoor and Sanjay Dutt.

This will be the 18th edition of the IPL season. It will kick off with IPLs defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) facing Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB). Spanning 74 matches across 13 venues, the tournament will culminate in a grand finale on May 25.

There will be ten teams in total Chennai Super Kings, Delhi Capitals, Gujarat Titans, Kolkata Knight Riders, Lucknow Super Giants, Mumbai Indians, Punjab Kings, Rajasthan Royals, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, and Sunrisers Hyderabad.

As reported, Shah Rukh will attend as his team plays the opening match, and Salman might be there to promote Sikandar. With only a few days left for the official new season of Indian Premiere League to kickstart, there is an information that there are many from the world of showbiz and entertainment, who are expected to attend the opening ceremony. They are to be crowd puller with massive engagement plans to woo the attendees.

American pop band OneRepublic is said to have been approached for a performance. OneRepublic had recently collaborated with Indian artists Karan Aujla and actress Disha Patani for Tell Me. The ceremony will feature electrifying performances by Arijit Singh, Shreya Ghoshal, Karan Aujla, Disha Patani, Shraddha Kapoor, and Varun Dhawan.

The source stated, Shreya Ghoshal, Disha Patani, Karan Aujla, Arijit Singh, Shraddha Kapoor, and Varun Dhawan will be performing. In addition to that, pop band OneRepublic, who collaborated with Karan Aujla and Disha Patani recently for Tell Me, has also been approached for a performance at the opening ceremony.

The guest list also includes Katrina Kaif, Ananya Panday, Madhuri Dixit, Janhvi Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor, Pooja Hegde, Ayushmann Khurrana, Sara Ali Khan, among many others. KKR vs LSG scheduled to be played on April 6 is likely to be rescheduled due to security concerns. There will be MS Dhoni also, who at 43 is still fit, still fearless, still CSKs king!

The IPL Format

The Indian Premier League (IPL) is a domestic, annual Twenty20 cricket tournament played in India. It is organized by the IPL Governing Council, under the aegis of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). It is the most watched Twenty20 tournament and the second-best-paying sporting league globally.

IPL was established in 2008 and currently consists of ten teams in ten cities across India. The inaugural IPL season was won by Rajasthan Royals. As of 2024, there have been seventeen seasons of the IPL tournament. Present one is the 18th season .

Up until 2021, the IPL tournament involved each team playing every other team twice in a home-and-away, double round-robin format.

From 2022, the ten teams were divided into two groups of five. A random draw was used to determine the groups and who plays whom across the groups once and twice. In the group stage, each team plays 14 games facing the other four teams in their group two times each (one home and one away game), four teams in the other group once, and the remaining team two times.

At the conclusion of the double round-robin league, on the basis of aggregate points, the top four teams qualify for the playoffs. In this stage, the top two teams compete with each other (in a match titled “Qualifier 1”), as do the remaining two teams (in a match titled “Eliminator”).

While the winner of Qualifier 1 directly qualifies for the final match, the losing team gets another chance to qualify for the final match by playing the winning team of the Eliminator match; this match is titled Qualifier 2.

The winner of this subsequent Qualifier 2 match moves onto the final match. The team that wins the final match is crowned the Indian Premier League Champion.

Twenty20 (abbreviated T20) is a shortened format of cricket. At the professional level, it was introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003 for the inter-county competition. In a Twenty20 game, the two teams have a single innings each, which is restricted to a maximum of twenty overs. Together with first-class and List A cricket, Twenty20 is one of the three forms of cricket recognized by the International Cricket Council (ICC) as being played at the highest level, both internationally and domestically.

A typical T20 game is completed in about three and a half hours,[2] with each innings lasting around 90 minutes and an official 10-minute break between the innings. This is much shorter than previous forms of the game, and is closer to the timespan of other popular team sports. It was introduced to create a fast-paced game that would be attractive to spectators at the ground and viewers on television.

Altogether, thirteen teams have played in the past ten seasons of the IPL tournament. Of these, three teams are no longer a part of the tournament. In 2011, BCCI terminated the franchise of Kochi Tuskers Kerala for contractual breach. Similarly, BCCI terminated the franchise of Deccan Chargers in 2012 for backing off from its commitments. In 2013, Pune Warriors India exited IPL after it had a franchise valuation disagreement with BCCI.

Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians have won five titles each while Kolkata Knight Riders have won three titles. Gujarat Titans, Sunrisers Hyderabad, Rajasthan Royals, and former team Deccan Chargers have won a title each.

Following India’s unexpected victory in the 2007 T20 World Cup, the 20-over format took off in incredible fashion. The now-defunct Indian Cricket League (ICL) was launched in 2007 and had some big names like Chris Cairns and Lance Klusener. It was the first domestic T20 league in India However, with no recognition from the BCCI, it fizzled out within a couple of years. The BCCI itself launched the Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2008 amid plenty of fanfare. This has gone on to become the biggest T20 competition in the world. The unprecedented success of the IPL has seen other countries launch their own T20 competitions, although none have been able to replicate the popularity of the IPL.

BIG BASH LEAGUE BBL (AUSTRALIA) is one such on global level. In terms of popularity, it comes closest to the IPL. It was established in 2011 by Cricket Australia. It features eight city-based franchises with teams representing Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Sydney, etc. The winner of BBL gets $450,000.