IPL new format: Two groups of five teams to still play 14 league matches

The 2022 Indian Premier League (IPL) will see a tweak in format as 10 teams will be divided into groups of five but each team will play 14 league matches in a peculiar way.

As per groupings released by BCCI on Friday, group A comprises Mumbai Indians, KKR, Rajasthan Royals, Delhi Capitals and Lucknow Supergiants.

The group B will have Chennai Super Kings, Sunrisers Hyderabad, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, Punjab Kings and Gujarat Titans.

Over the years, the IPL has been an eight-team affair where each team played each other twice at the round robin league stage to complete 14 games.

However this group league format is not new in IPL as it was once used a decade back when Pune Warriors and Kochi Tuskers Kerala were part of the league.

The 10 teams will play a total of 14 league matches (7 home matches and 7 away matches) totalling to 70 league matches, followed by the 4 playoff matches. Each team will play 5 teams twice and the remaining 4 teams only once (2 only home and 2 only away).

IPL teams and groups

The rows and columns of the groups (A and B) has been done as per IPL performances – number of titles and number of finals reached.

Firstly, the groupings have been done as per IPL performance where group A has MI (Team 1) with five titles as first team. Correspondingly, in group B, the first team is CSK (Team 2) which has four titles.

Team 3 is again placed in group A and that is KKR with two titles and the corresponding Team 4 placed in group B is SRH with a sole title.

Team 5 again in group A is Rajasthan Royals (1 title) and its corresponding Team 6 in group B is RCB, which has played three finals.

Team 7 in group A is Delhi Capitals, which has one final appearance and two play-offs while corresponding Team 8 in group B is Punjab Kings with one final appearance.

Newcomers, Lucknow Super Giants is Team 9 in group A and Gujarat Titans is corresponding team 10 in group B.

14 league matches

Each team plays the other teams in its group twice, which makes it eight matches. Each team will play with the corresponding team in the other group twice, and with the other four teams in the other group once.

So MI will pay two games with teams in its group A and also with CSK from group B. It will then play one match each against the four teams in group B.

This is how teams attain (8+6) 14 group league games.