How the Indian Premier League works
The IPL is India's franchise T20 league, run by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). This guide explains how a season is played and decided, and how teams are built, without the standings and squads that change every year.
By the Manage Cricket team · Updated
Contents
What the IPL is
The Indian Premier League is a Twenty20 competition between franchise teams, each with a home city or state. It started in 2008 and has had ten teams since 2022, when two new franchises joined. Every match is a standard T20 of 20 overs a side, and each team blends Indian players with a limited number of overseas players.
The league stage
A season starts with a long league stage. In the ten-team format each side plays 14 league matches, and the schedule is drawn so that every team meets some opponents twice, home and away, and others once. All the results go into one points table:
| Result | Points |
|---|---|
| Win | 2 |
| No result | 1 each |
| Loss | 0 |
A tied match goes to a Super Over, one over a side, to decide the winner, so a tie on the scoreboard rarely ends as shared points.
Ties on points: wins first, then net run rate
Teams finishing on the same points are ranked first by the number of wins. If they have the same wins as well, the higher net run rate goes above. That is why commentators talk about net run rate in the last weeks of the league: two teams on 14 points can be separated by a few decimal places.
Net run rate is the average runs per over a team scores minus the average runs per over scored against it, across the season. A team that is bowled out counts its full 20 overs, not the overs it actually lasted, and only matches with a result count. The net run rate guide has a full worked example, and the net run rate calculator works out your own table.
The playoffs: Qualifier 1, Eliminator and Qualifier 2
The top four teams reach the playoffs. The IPL has used the same four-match ladder for years:
- Qualifier 1: the teams placed first and second. The winner goes straight to the final.
- Eliminator: third against fourth. The loser goes home.
- Qualifier 2: the loser of Qualifier 1 against the winner of the Eliminator, for the second place in the final.
- Final: the winners of Qualifier 1 and Qualifier 2.
Finishing in the top two is worth a lot: those teams have two chances to reach the final, while the third and fourth teams must win three knockout matches in a row to win the title.
League table: P first, Q second, R third, S fourth.
Qualifier 1: P beats Q, so P is in the final and Q drops into Qualifier 2.
Eliminator: S beats R, so R is out.
Qualifier 2: S beats Q, and S reaches the final from fourth place.
Final: P against S.
Overseas players
A team may name no more than four overseas players in its playing eleven, and no more than four may be on the field at any time. The other seven or more players are Indian, which is why the league is such a big stage for young Indian cricketers. Squads are larger: for the 2025 mega auction each squad had to have between 18 and 25 players, with no more than eight from overseas.
The auction and retentions
IPL teams are built at an auction. Every few years there is a mega auction, where most players go back into the pool and squads are rebuilt; the 2025 season followed the league's fifth mega auction. In the years between, smaller auctions fill the gaps left by released players.
Before an auction each team may keep some players. Ahead of the 2025 mega auction a team could keep up to six of its players in total, by retaining them before the auction or by using a Right to Match card, which lets a team match the highest bid for one of its former players and take that player back. Each team bids from a fixed purse, which was 120 crore rupees for that auction. The numbers are set again before every auction, so check the season you are reading about.
The Impact Player rule
From 2023 the IPL has let each team bring in one substitute during a match, called the Impact Player. The captain names a few substitutes at the toss and may swap one of them in at a set moment, such as the start of an innings or the end of an over; the player replaced takes no further part. A team with four overseas players in its eleven can only bring in an Indian player this way. The rule was in use through the 2026 season and has been under review since, so check the current season's playing conditions before you rely on it.
Taking the IPL format to your club
Club leagues borrow a lot from the IPL: two points for a win, wins and net run rate to split teams on equal points, and a playoff at the end. With Manage Cricket you can run your tournament as a league that ends with a final for the top two or semi-finals for the top four, score every match ball by ball and let the points table update itself. If rain shortens a match, the DLS calculator sets the revised target.