The first phase schedule of the 2024 edition of the Indian Premier League will be announced on February 22 and will be live streamed on the Jio Cinema app from 5 pm onwards. It is understood that the schedule of only the first two weeks is likely to be announced on Thursday and the remainder will be announced in two more parts.
IPL is set to begin on March 22 and will culminate on May 26. Just like the 2023 edition, 74 matches will be played this year but instead of 60 days last year, the fixtures would be played out over 67 days. The extension by a week is because of the General Elections.
As CricketNext reported last week, the IPL Governing Council is waiting for necessary approvals and clearances from both the Home Ministry and the Election Commission of India, and will only announce the remainder of the schedule when the polling schedule is announced.
A similar approach was followed the last time General Elections were held in the country too and the fixtures were announced in two parts. Like last time, the cash-rich league will be completely played in India and there was never any discussion or thought of moving it overseas.
India are currently playing the five-Test series against England and there will be little over a week’s rest for the Test regulars to get ready for the T20 extravaganza. It is a very crucial IPL season for the 2024 T20 World Cup hopefuls as the performances in the league would be taken into account for the selection of the squad for the ICC event later this year.
In an interaction on the sidelines of an event in Rajkot, BCCI secretary Jay Shah said all national selectors will be attending IPL games at different venues and added that the decision on a new selector is likely to be taken soon.
The BCCI medical team and National Cricket Academy (NCA) will also be closely monitoring the workload of players expected to make the T20 World Cup cut and Shah added that, like previous editions, all franchises will have no option but to follow what “supreme body” decides.
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