Indian Premier League I IPL T20 League I IPL I Cricketfile

Indian Premier League (IPL)

“Indian Premier League (IPL) is a Twenty20 tournament founded by the Board of Control for Cricket in India in 2007. It is the most loved tournament in India. Every year it brings together some 100 crore people to stand by their favourite teams, which in turn becomes a great source of revenue for the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The match is played between eight teams representing eight states that play against each other over 2 months to win the IPL maiden title.  

Origin

Lalit Modi, the then Vice-president of BCCI, in September 2007, made an announcement regarding the launch of India’s first domestic tournament. Mr. Lalit Modi named it Indian Premier League, the name which he had taken on the lines of English Premier League, a football club of Europe. He announced that India needed to have a cricket league of its own. He further explained everything related to the tournament. Modi mentioned that it would be the Twenty20 series which will be based on franchises. Where each franchisee can buy players of their own. The composition of the team and the prize money that would be offered to the winners too were decided by Mr. Modi and thus Indian Premier League came into being.

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On 24 January 2008, an auction took place for deciding the owners of the new tournament. And, the total base prices set for the franchise were around $400 million. 

In total there were eight teams whose names were based on the name of cities. At first, the names which were chosen for the teams were based on the name of cities of Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Mohali, and Mumbai. However, since then, there has been a lot of expansion and termination of the teams and many names have been changed. A sneak peek into the names of the current teams is as follows: 

1. Chennai Super Kings based out of Chennai, Tamil Nadu
2. Delhi Capitals based out of Delhi
3. Kings XI Punjab based out of Mohali
4. Kolkata Knight Riders based out of Kolkata
5. Mumbai Indians based out of Mumbai
6. Rajasthan Royals based out of Jaipur
7. Royal Challengers Bangalore based out of Bangalore
8. Sun Risers Hyderabad based out of Hyderabad

Out of these current 8 teams, Sun Risers made their debut in 2013. While the other 7 were in the existence since the inception of the league in 2008. These eight teams are owned by a franchise that buys the players to play for the team. 

Format of the Indian Premier League

Indian Premier League (IPL) is the most popular domestic tournament of cricket. A large number of audiences come to experience the same for two months. There are in total eight teams that play in the league. Each team plays with every other team twice. Thus gets to play 14 matches in total in the league stage in round-robin format until they make it to the playoffs.

Only the top four teams of the game get to play the playoffs where there are three rounds. First, being the Qualifier round where the top two team clashes with each other to make a direct entry to the finals. The team that loses the Qualifiers gets another chance to make it to the finals in the third round which is the Eliminator 2 round where the clash is between the winner of round 2, that is, Eliminator 1 round, played between the teams with third and fourth highest points. The winner of Eliminator 1 then competes with the loser of Qualifiers to reach the finals.   

Hence, the winner of the Qualifiers and Eliminator 2 compete against each other in the finals. 

The means of acquiring Players in the Indian Premier League

The squad strength of a team is generally between 18 and 25 players, with a maximum of 8 international players. However, only four international players are allowed to play in the playing eleven. The franchise chooses its player every season in any of the following ways:

• While buying the player at the auction,
• By trading players with other teams during trading windows,
• Signing a replacement for unavailable players. 

Players sign themselves up for the auction and set their minimum base price. The franchise then bid over the base amount and buy the player of their choice. Unsold players are then eligible to sign up for the replacement signings. Pat Cummins, the Australian cricketer, became the most expensive player in IPL 2020. He played for Kolkata Knight Riders for Rs. 15.50 crores.

The second way to acquire the player is by trading windows. A player can only be traded for another team with his consent. If the franchisee agrees to pay the difference amount between the old and the new contract.

Awards

Apart from the winning award, a lot of other awards are given to the players to keep the fighting spirit alive. Some of the popular awards given to the players are as follows:

1. Orange Cap: It is awarded to the skipper, who scores the most runs during the tournament.
2. Purple Cap: The one, who takes the most wickets, gets the honor to wear the purple cap throughout the season, and eventually, the best one takes it home.
3. Most Valuable Player: The award was introduced in 2013, where the Most Valuable Rating system was introduced, the player who leads the board is then named as the “Most Valuable Player” of the season.

Indian Premier League 2020

Due to the coronavirus outbreak, the tournament took place outside the country, in the United Arab Emirates. Mumbai Indians under the captaincy of Rohit Sharma took the winning trophy home for the 5th term, since the inception of the league in 2008. As IPL is the most followed tournament, the prize money offered is always humongous. In 2020, Mumbai Indians won a whopping amount of Rs. 20 crores followed by Delhi Capitals who stood second and received Rs. 10 crores. 

Cricket runs in the veins and the soul of the Indians and so is the Indian Premier League. Every year, one thing in common that Indians wait for is for their favorite tournament to happen.

Indian Premier League Songs

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