IPL (2025) - Discussion Thread

[FearlessRoar]

The 2025 Indian Premier League will be the 18th edition of the Indian Premier League, a franchise Twenty20 cricket league in India, organized by the Board of Control for Cricket in India. The tournament will feature ten teams competing in 84 matches. It will be held across 13 cities in India, with Kolkata hosting the opening ceremony and the final.

Kolkata Knight Riders are the defending champions, having won their third title during the previous season after beating Sunrisers Hyderabad. The format is as 2022, unlike 2023, with changes in group order. Each team will be playing twice against the teams in their group, against the team in the same row in the other group, and once against the remaining four teams in the other group.

After the group stage, the top four teams based on aggregate points qualified for the playoffs. In this stage, the top two teams compete with each other (in a match titled "Qualifier 1"), as do the remaining two teams (in a match titled "Eliminator"). While the winner of Qualifier 1 directly qualified for the final match, the losing team has another chance to qualify for the final match by competing against the winning team of the Eliminator match (in a match titled "Qualifier 2"). The winner of this subsequent Qualifier 2 match will move on to the final match. The team that wins the final match will be crowned the Indian Premier League winners.

 

[FearlessRoar]

Zaheer Khan Appointed as New Mentor for Lucknow Super Giants Ahead of IPL 2025 Season​

A new era has been ushered in with the Lucknow Super Giants as the IPL franchise has hired former World Cup winner and Indian pacer Zaheer Khan as the new team mentor for the upcoming 2025 season of the IPL.

LSG owner Sanjiv Goenka called for a press conference reagrding the future of his franchise, and one of his first orders of business was to announce Zaheer into the LSG family.

The former Indian pacer shall be filling in the role left open after the departure of Indian team’s head coach Gautam Gambhir when he parted ways to rejoin his beloved KRR befoer IPL 2024.

This won’t be his first stint in managerial/coaching roles though. From 2018 to 2022, Zaheer was involved with the Mumbai Indians (MI) franchise, first as director of cricket and then head of global development.

Prior to that, he was part of three IPL teams as a player – Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Delhi Daredevils.

Zaheer shall join the ranks of LSG head coach Justin Langer, who is said to continue his tenure, with Lance Klusener and Adam Voges as his assistants.

“I will make sure that the process that is required to LSG the next level is there. The next season is going to be a special one,” stated an ecstatic Zaheer at the press conference in Kokata, as per RevSportz.

Another point of order though that remains for Goenka to address is that of KL Rahul’s future with the franchise.

According to a report in Cricbuzz on Monday (August 26), Rahul, who joined the Lucknow-based franchise for Rs 17 crore ahead of the IPL 2022 mega auction, met LSG owner Sanjeev Goenka on Monday in the franchise’s Kolkata office.

The one-hour-long meeting between the two was reportedly centred around the team composition for the new season of the cash-rich league and the potential retention of Rahul.

While there is no guarantee that LSG will retain Rahul, the fact that he was called on by the owner could be a pointer to it.

At the presser, Goenka was hesitant to spill the beans on KL Rahul’s future with the Lucknow franchise, stating that he wanted to avoid speculation of any sort.

“I don’t want to comment on speculation. All I will say is that KL Rahul is family,” Goenka stated as per reports from RevSportz.

“KL Rahul is an important and integral part of the Supergiants family.”

Zaheer Khan Appointed as New Mentor for Lucknow Super Giants Ahead of IPL 2025 - News18

The former Indian pacer shall be filling in the role left open after the departure of Indian team's head coach Gautam Gambhir when he parted ways to rejoin his beloved KRR befoer IPL 2024.

www.news18.com

 

[FearlessRoar]

India's Richest Man Backs Out From Buying Billion-dollar IPL-winning Franchise: Report​

India’s richest man, Gautam Adani and the Adani Group have backed out from the race to buy the 2022 Indian Premier League Champions, Gujarat Titans and the majority stake is set to be bought by Ahmedabad-based Torrent Group.

According to a report by The Economic Times, the Gujarat-based franchise is set to have a change in ownership with a verbal agreement in place with the current owners, CVC Capital Partners in a deal valued at over 1 billion USD (8390 crores in INR).

As per the report, “Torrent and CVC have a gentleman’s agreement in place for the Gujarat Titans since a formal deal can only be signed after the lock-in period ends,” one of the sources said on condition of anonymity.”

The deal would only be possible after the ownership lock-in period comes to an end which is in February 2025.

The reported deal would see Torrent Group acquire the majority stake while CVC Capital Partners would still have significant minority shares as well.

Sources as per the report have suggested that the Adani Group might have backed out of the deal due to the high price tag along with the organisation looking to shift their focus on their core businesses which include power and ports.

It is to be noted that both Adani and Torrent Groups had been part of the race to acquire the franchise rights for Gujarat back in 2021. They had bid 5100 crores and 4653 crore INR respectively. But CVC Capital partners had the biggest bid of 5625 crores INR.

The franchise will have to acquire clearance from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to ensure that the deal is finalised.

Torrent Group, an Ahmedabad-based organisation specialises in the power and pharma industries with a market capitalisation of INR 2 lakh crores. Ahead of the 2021 auction, for the franchise rights, they had also set up the Torrent Sports Ventures as well.

Titans after winning the 2022 title have gone to to make the finals in the 2023 season following which saw a slump where they failed to make it to the playoffs for the first time in their brief history in the tournament.

India's Richest Man Backs Out From Buying Billion-dollar IPL-winning Franchise: Report - News18

A change in ownership is on the cards for a former IPL-winning side ahead of the 2025 season.

www.news18.com

 

[AMSS]

A billion USD for a cricket franchise that's 1) asset light with no stadium etc and 2) has practically no history in a league that is itself relatively recent seems absurd but when you look at the cashflow it does not seem as madcap. Still pricey at a multiple of 20x their annual earning though.

 

[Cricket Warrior]

BCCI to Delay Announcement on IPL 2025 Retention Policy Till End of September: Report

Ahead of the 2025 season of the Indian Premier League, franchise owners will be keenly waiting on the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s announcement where they announce the retention rules before the mega-auctions.

A report from Cricbuzz claims that the BCCI could delay the announcement till the end of the month possibly making the news public during the Annual General Meeting (AGM) which is slated to take place on September 29.

The announcement which was supposed to be made by the end of August could be delayed as franchise officials are reportedly being informed that there could be a delay in the final retention rules being made public.

The upcoming IPL mega-auction could serve as a platform for all franchises to completely overhaul their side in a bid to be title contenders in the long-term perspective. Due to the delay in announcing the retention rules, franchises would have to bide in their time and hope that the policies would work in their favour.

The report also claimed that all the teams would have a deadline of November 15 to finalise their retentions and the Right-to-Match card will also be a feature present in the mega-auction which is supposed to be held in December 2024.

Speculations have already begun with several big-name players tipped to be released from their respective squads, this would prove to be an opportunity for other franchises to possibly bag some fine talents to bolster their respective squads.

A notable change that was announced earlier was the appointment of Rahul Dravid as the Head Coach of the Rajasthan Royals following his stint as Team India’s Head Coach where he was part of the national team’s T20 World Cup 2024 winning campaign in Barbados.

It will be interesting to see the franchises pick out their retentions based on the policy that is yet to be announced as several sides could be forced to release some fine talents that could ply their trade in a new outfit.

BCCI to Delay Announcement on IPL 2025 Retention Policy Till End of September: Report - News18

Franchises will be waiting for the BCCI to announce the retention policy ahead of the IPL 2025 mega-auction.

www.news18.com

 

[deltexas]

Jeez , IPL is already back. Just felt like 2024 IPL barely got over ! Am shuddering to think what happens when they will plan for 2 IPL's every year in the not so distant future as Ravi shastri had suggested

 

[BouncerGuy]

Jeez , IPL is already back. Just felt like 2024 IPL barely got over ! Am shuddering to think what happens when they will plan for 2 IPL's every year in the not so distant future as Ravi shastri had suggested

2 IPLs will kill the whole vibe and excitement of this event. I think there should be only 1 IPL like it is now.