All the league games of Indian Premier League (IPL) Tournament will continue to start at 8 PM sharp like every year it used to do, said the Committee Of Administrators (COA), Vinod Rai. There was speculation that BCCI could change the timings, that is to start the match one hour early at 7 Pm from the regular time of 8 PM.

Many teams wanted the timings to remain unchanged and after the COA meeting in New Delhi, the decision was passed that the afternoon matches will start at 4 pm and the evening matches to begin at 8 pm.  The BCCI stuck with its original decision after the review meeting.

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A similar situation had occurred last year when it was speculated that the matches would start from 7 pm onwards, but instead that, the matches were resumed by 8. Only the playoff matches including the final match were started 1 hour early than the regular timings.

The BCCI announced the IPL schedule for the first 17 matches on February 19 where the rest of the schedule is yet to be announced as the Board is waiting for the Elections dates to be declared first and they can act further accordingly to that.

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The first match starts from March 23 as defending Champions Chennai Super Kings will take on arch-rivals Royal Challengers Bangalore at their home ground M.A Chidambaram Stadium. With MS Dhoni’s Kings facing the aggressive Challengers of Bangalore, which will be a Marquee event of the IPL.

This year the IPL is starting a little earlier than it does usually take place in April as World Cup is ahead and is scheduled to begin from May 30, so this year the IPL has to be finished earlier than regular so that the National teams can get ample of time to play the practice match. And many players won’t participate in this year’s IPL as they will be busy for the preparations of the Cup like the Australians.