If it’s March, it’s got to be IPL.
The 17th season of cricket’s annual extravaganza, which brings together the world’s best players, gets underway with a marquee clash between defending champions Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bengaluru on Friday evening at Chennai.
This edition of the T20 league is different in the sense that the ICC T20 World Cup is scheduled to begin just days after IPL ends. There will be an extra motivation for players to perform to the best of their potential to seal their berths in the national team.
Here’s your ready guide to IPL-17.
Defending champions: Chennai Super Kings
Last year’s runners-up: Gujarat Titans
First match: Chennai Super Kings vs Royal Challengers Bengaluru (March 22, Chennai, 8 pm)
Total number of matches: 74
No. of teams: 10 — Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), Gujarat Titans (GT), Mumbai Indians (MI), Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), Rajasthan Royals (RR), Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), Delhi Capitals (DC), Punjab Kings (PK), Lucknow Supergiants (LSG)
The captains – Ruturaj Gaikwad (Chennai), Faf du Plessis (Bengaluru), Hardik Pandya (Mumbai), Shubman Gill (Gujarat), Shreyas Iyer (Kolkata), Pat Cummins (Hyderabad), Rishabh Pant (Delhi), Shikhar Dhawan (Punjab), K L Rahul (Lucknow), Sanju Samson (Rajasthan Royals).
THE SQUADS
Chennai Super Kings — Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ajinkya Rahane, Shaik Rasheed, Sameer Rizvi (all batters); Daryl Mitchell, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, Moeen Ali, Rachin Ravindra, Mitchell Santner, Nishant Sindhu (allrounders); MS Dhoni, Aravelly Avinash (wicketkeepers); Mukesh Choudhary, Maheesh Theekshana, Simarjeet Singh, Mustafizur Rahman, Matheesha Pathirana, Prashant Solanki, Shardul Thakur, Tushar Deshpande, Ajay Mandal, Deepak Chahar, Rajvardhan Hangargekar (all bowlers).
Royal Challengers Bengaluru — Faf du Plessis, Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, Anuj Rawat, Suyash Prabhudessai, Will Jacks, Saurav Chauhan (all batters); Glenn Maxwell, Mahipal Lomror, Karn Sharma, Cameron Green, Swapnil Singh, Mayank Dagar, Manoj Bhandage (allrounders); Dinesh Karthik (wicketkeeper); Vijaykumar Vyshak, Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj, Reece Topley, Himanshu Sharma, Rajan Kumar, Alzarri Joseph, Yash Dayal, Tom Curran, Lockie Ferguson (all bowlers).
Mumbai Indians — Rohit Sharma, Dewald Brevis, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Tim David (all batters); Hardik Pandya, Mohammad Nabi, Arjun Tendulkar, Shams Mulani, Nehal Wadhera, Romario Shepherd, Gerald Coetzee, Naman Dhir, Shivalik Sharma, Anshul Khamboj (allrounders); Ishan Kishan, Vishnu Vinod (wicketkeepers); Jasprit Bumrah, Shreyas Gopal, Piyush Chawla, Aakash Madhwal, Luke Wood, Nuwan Thusara, Kwena Maphaka, Kumar Kartikeya (all bowlers).
Delhi Capitals — David Warner, Prithvi Shaw, Swastik Chikara, Yash Dhull (batter); Axar Patel, Jake Fraser-Mcgurk, Lalit Yadav, Mitchell Marsh, Sumit Kumar (allrounders); Rishabh Pant, Abishek Porel, Kumar Kushagra, Ricky Bhui, Shai Hope, Tristan Stubbs (wicketkeepers); Anrich Nortje, Mukesh Kumar, Kuldeep Yadav, Ishant Sharma, Jhye Richardson, Khaleel Ahmed, Pravin Dubey, Rasikh Dar, Vicky Ostwal (all bowlers).
Sunrisers Hyderabad — Abdul Samad, Aiden Markram, Rahul Tripathi, Mayank Agarwal, Travis Head, Anmolpreet Singh (all batters); Washington Sundar, Abhishek Sharma, Shahbaz Ahmed, Sanvir Singh, Nitish Kumar Reddy (allrounders); Glenn Phillips, Upendra Singh Yadav, Heinrich Klaasen (wicketkeepers); Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Marco Jansen, Pat Cummins, T Natarajan, Mayank Markande, Umran Malik, Wanindu Hasaranga, Jaydev Unadkat, Akash Singh, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Jhathavedh Subramanyan (all bowlers).
Lucknow Super Giants — Ayush Badoni, Devdutt Padikkal, Ashton Turner (batters); Kyle Mayers, Marcus Stoinis, Deepak Hooda, Krunal Pandya, Yudhvir Singh, David Willey, Arshin Kulkarni, Prerak Mankad, K. Gowtham, Md Arshad Khan (allrounders); K L Rahul, Quinton de Kock, Nicholas Pooran (wicketkeepers); Ravi Bishnoi, Naveen-ul-Haq, Yash Thakur, Amit Mishra, Shamar Joseph, Mayank Yadav, Mohsin Khan,, Shivam Mavi, M Siddharth (all bowlers)
Gujarat Titans — Shubman Gill, David Miller, Abhinav Manohar, Kane Williamson, Sai Sudharsan (all batters); Mathew Wade, Wriddhiman Saha, Robin Minz (wicketkeepers); Rashid Khan, Rahul Tewatia, Jayant Yadav, Vijay Shankar, Azmatullah Omarzai, Darshan Nalkande, Shahrukh Khan (allrounders); Umesh Yadav, Josh Little, R Sai Kishore, Mohit Sharma, Noor Ahmad, Sushant Mishra, Kartik Tyagi, Manav Suthar, Spencer Johnson, Sandeep Warrier (all bowlers).
Punjab Kings — Shikhar Dhawan, Harpreet Bhatia, Rilee Rossouw, Shashank Singh (batters); Jonny Bairstow, Prabhsimran Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wicketkeepers); Liam Livingstone, Atharva Taide, Rishi Dhawan, Sam Curran, Sikandar Raza, Shivam Singh, Chris Woakes, Ashutosh Sharma, Vishwanath Singh, Tanay Thyagarajan (allrounders); Harpreet Brar, Arshdeep Singh, Kagiso Rabada, Nathan Ellis, Rahul Chahar, Vidhwath Kaverappa, Prince Choudhary, Harshal Patel (all bowlers).
Kolkata Knight Riders — Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Shreyas Iyer, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey, Angkrish Raghuvanshi (all batters); Phil Salt, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, KS Bharat (wicketkeepers); Anukul Roy, Andre Russell, Venkatesh Iyer, Ramandeep Singh (allrounders); Mitchell Starc, Harshit Rana, Suyash Sharma, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakravarthy, Chetan Sakaria, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Dushmantha Chameera, Sakib Hussain, Vaibhav Arora.
Rajasthan Royals — Shimron Hetmyer, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Riyan Parag, Rovman Powell, Shubham Dubey (all batters); Sanju Samson, Jos Buttler, Dhruv Jurel, Kunal Rathore, Donovan Ferreira, Tom Kohler-Cadmore; Ravichandran Ashwin, Abid Mushtaq (allrounders); Trent Boult, Yuzvendra Chahal, Sandeep Sharma, Navdeep Saini, Kuldeep Sen, Nandre Burger, Avesh Khan (all bowlers).
FIVE TOP PLAYERS IN SPOTLIGHT
Rishabh Pant
All eyes will be on Rishabh Pant, who will be playing competitive cricket after 15 months. The swashbuckling wicketkeeper-batter thought his time in the world was over when he crashed his SUV into a median divider while driving on the Delhi-Dehradun in the early hours of December 30, 2022. Fortunate to have been given a second life, the 26-year-old Pant is ready to lead Delhi Capitals after an extensive recovery and rehab programme. Will he be as destructive with the bat and efficient with the big gloves as he was prior to the near-fatal accident?
Virat Kohli
For the first time in his decade-and-a-half long international career, King Kohli skipped an entire Test series, that too, an important 5-Test contest against England for personal reasons. Fresh from becoming a dad for the second time, Kohli can’t wait to do what he likes best best – scoring tons of runs. RCB are yet to win the IPL, so Kohli and his teammates will be looking to take inspiration from Smriti Mandhana & Co. who lifted the Women’s Premier League recently.
Hardik Pandya
Another leading Team India player with a lot to prove is Hardik Pandya. The allrounder has been out of action since October when he hurt his ankle during the ODI World Cup match against Bangladesh in Pune. More importantly, he was brought back to his previous franchise Mumbai Indians and named captain replacing five-time IPL skipper Rohit Sharma. His performance will be keenly to watched by national selectors as well as Rohit fans.
Mitchell Starc
The experienced Australian left-arm pacer made waves in the IPL player auction three months ago as he became the most expensive cricketer in the history of the tournament. Following an intense bidding war, Kolkata Knight Riders acquired the 34-year-old Starc for an astronomical Rs 24.75 crore! There will be pressure on Starc to justify that high price tag, especially as he can be injury-prone and had to pull out of the 2018 edition after KKR bought him for Rs 9.40 crore. He last played in IPL nine years ago.
Pat Cummins
Another Australian pacer who sent franchises on overdrive during the last player auction, held in Dubai on December 19, 2023. The Australian captain was the one who broke the price record as Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) picked him for Rs 20.5 crore, before his teammate Starc overshadowed him within an hour. Cummins’ ability as a matchwinner is beyond doubt, but he will have to shoulder captaincy responsibilities also of a team which won the title in 2016 but hasn’t made the playoffs in the last 3 seasons.
Number of venues – Chennai (CSK), Chandigarh (PK), Kolkata (KKR), Jaipur (RR), Ahmedabad (GT), Bengaluru (RCB), Lucknow (LSG), Hyderabad (SRH), Vizag (DC), Mumbai (MI).
No matches will be played in New Delhi and Mohali this season as the Arun Jaitley Stadium and IS Bindra Stadium are undergoing renovation. Instead, Visakhapatnam will host DC’s matches and Chandigarh’s Mullanpur Stadium will be PK’s home ground.
Match timings: First match from 8 pm (after opening ceremony), other days from 7.30 pm, double headers from 3.30 pm & 7.30 pm
Where to watch: Star Sports Network and Jio Cinema.
