Mumbai: BCCI has recently announced the full Vivo Indian Premier League schedule unlike earlier with the first 17 matches.
The eight regular ‘home cities’ will host the entire league phase of IPL 2019, the BCCI confirmed with the release of the second installment of the schedule of the 12th edition of the franchise-based T20 competition, on Tuesday (March 19).
With the general elections sweeping through India from April 11 to May 19, it was expected that IPL 2019 could move to smaller cities given the many-phase nature of polls in some of the big towns, especially Mumbai and Kolkata. But the tournament has managed to retain its home-and-away format.
The BCCI is delighted to announce that the tournament would be played in India.
Each of the franchises will play their respective 7 home games in their own home venues.
Earlier, 2009 and 2014 are other two years when India’s general elections coincided with the IPL. While the tournament was moved en masse to South Africa in 2009, only the starting few matches of the 2014 edition were moved to the UAE. There were similar speculations this year too but the Committee of Administrators (CoA) had announced on January 8 its decision to hold the IPL in full in India and the schedule for the first two weeks was released mid-February, with the board then still awaiting election dates.
The Board has thanked the Election Commission of India for its cooperation at each venue.
The league stage, which will kick off on March 23 with defending champions Chennai Super Kings hosting Royal Challengers Bangalore.
