IPL 2026 start date revealed! New season to get underway in last week of March

New Delhi: The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 season is reportedly set to get underway in the final week of March next year. The next season will be the 19th season of the cash-rich league, which started in 2008. The ten IPL franchises were reportedly informed about the start date of the tournament during a meeting with the stakeholders ahead of the IPL 2026 auction in Abu Dhabi on Monday.

As per Cricbuzz, the IPL 2026 will kick start on March 26 and the final of the season will be played on May 31. However, the final schedule and venues of the tournament are yet to be confirmed. It also remains to be seen if the opening match of the tournament will be played at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.

Traditionally, the opening match of the season has been staged in the home venue of the defending champions. However, with the uncertainty surrounding Chinnaswamy Stadium’s availability for IPL 2026 matches, there is no clarity on whether the opener will be played in Bengaluru.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) will head into IPL 2026 as the defending champions, having defeated Punjab Kings (PBKS) in the final to lift their maiden IPL title last season. The Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) has obtained conditional approval from the state government to host IPL matches at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.

However, the KSCA has been told that the matches can be played at the venue only after they implement the recommendations suggested by the Justice D’Cunha Commission that investigated the tragic stampede that occurred outside the stadium during RCB’s IPL title celebrations on June 04 this year. Earlier this year, the Women’s ODI World Cup matches were moved from Bengaluru to Mumbai.

19 new names added to IPL 2026 auction list

Meanwhile, the BCCI added 19 new names to the final list of players who will go under the hammer at the IPL 2026 auction on Tuesday. The players’ list was revised to 369 after the addition of the new names. The ten franchises have a purse of Rs 237.55 crore and have a maximum of 77 slots to fill at the IPL mini-auction.

Bengal batter Abhimanyu Easwaran, Tripura all-rounder Mani Shankar Mura Singh, former RCB batter Swastik Chikara, Jharkhand’s Virat Singh and Saransh Jain are among the new Indian players added to the IPL 2026 auction list. Among overseas players, the likes of Zimbabwe pacer Blessing Muzarabani, South Africa’s Kyle Verreynne and Australia’s Chris Green are among the new additions.

19 players who were added to the IPL 2026 auction players list:

Mani Shankar Mura Singh, Virat Singh, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Virandeep Singh, Saransh Jain, Chama Milind, KL Shrijith, Eathan Bosch, Chris Green, Swastik Chikara, Rahul Raj Namala, , Tripuresh Singh, Kyle Verreynne, Blessing Muzarabani, Ben Sears, Rajesh Mohanty, Swastik Samal, Sooraj Sangaraju and Tanmay Agarwal.