The highly anticipated Indian Premier League 2025 (IPL) is back, and this year promises to be bigger and better than ever. The Big-Bucks tournament, which is set to kick off on March 22, will run until May 25. With ten teams vying for glory, the competition will see some of the biggest names in world cricket joining forces with young guns, ensuring a thrilling tournament . 

This season will also witness a bunch of fresh leaders, who will lead their sides for the first time in the IPL. Teams like (defending champions) Kolkata Knight Riders (Ajinkya Rahane), Royal Challengers Bengaluru (Rajat Patidar), Delhi Capitals (Axar Patel), Punjab Kings (Shreyas Iyer) and Lucknow Super Giants (Rishabh Pant) have appointed new captains for IPL 2025. While, Gujarat Titans (Shubman Gill), Chennai Super Kings (Ruturaj Gaikwad), Mumbai Indians (Hardik Pandya), Sunrisers Hyderabad (Pat Cummins) and Rajasthan Royals (Sanju Samson) have retained their captains from the previous season.

The 18th edition of the Indian Premier League will feature ten teams, who will face each other twice during the league stage. The top two teams at the end of the league stage will face off in the first qualifier, while the third- and fourth-placed teams will face off in the eliminator. The winner of the first qualifier will storm into the final, while the loser will play the winner of the eliminator in the second qualifier. 

And, whosoever comes out victorious in the second qualifier will qualify for the final. First qualifier will be held on May 20 at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad. And the Eliminator will be played on May 21 at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad. Meanwhile, second qualifier and final will be held on May 23 and May 25 respectively. Both the games will be played at Eden Gardens, Kolkata. 

Rishabh Pant is the most expensive player in IPL 2025, having been bought for ₹27 crore by Lucknow Super Giants. And, the most expensive overseas player in IPL 2025 is Jos Buttler, who was sold to GT for ₹15.75 crore. 

The ten teams participating in the tournament are Chennai Super Kings, Delhi Capitals, Gujarat Titans, Kolkata Knight Riders, Lucknow Super Giants, Mumbai Indians, Punjab Kings, Rajasthan Royals, Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Sunrisers Hyderabad.

Home venues of all ten teams-: 

MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai – (Chennai Super Kings)

Arun Jaitley Stadium, New Delhi – (Delhi Capitals)

Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad – (Gujarat Titans)

M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru – (Royal Challengers Bengaluru)

Eden Gardens, Kolkata – (Kolkata Knight Riders)

Ekana Stadium, Lucknow – (Lucknow Super Giants)

Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai – (Mumbai Indians)

Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium, Punjab – (Punjab Kings)

Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur – (Rajasthan Royals)

Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad – (Sunrisers Hyderabad)

Kolkata Knight Riders are the defending champions, and they will take on Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the tournament opener on March 22 at Eden Gardens. 

IPL 2025 squads:

Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR)

Ajinkya Rahane (c), Rinku Singh, Quinton de Kock, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Venkatesh Iyer, Ramandeep Singh, Andre Russell, Anrich Nortje Harshit Rana, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakaravarthy, Vaibhav Arora, Mayank Markande, Rovman Powell, Manish Pandey, Spencer Johnson, Luvnith Sisodia, Anukul Roy, Moeen Ali, Umran Malik

Chennai Super Kings (CSK)

Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), MS Dhoni, Ravindra Jadeja, Shivam Dube, Matheesha Pathirana, Noor Ahmad, Ravichandran Ashwin, Devon Conway, Syed Khaleel Ahmed, Rachin Ravindra, Rahul Tripathi, Vijay Shankar, Sam Curran, Shaik Rashid, Anshul Kamboj, Mukesh Choudhary, Deepak Hooda, Gurjanpreet Singh, Nathan Ellis, Jamie Overton, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Ramakrishnan Ghosh, Shreyas Gopal, Vansh Bedi, Andre Siddarth

Mumbai Indians (MI)

Hardik Pandya (c), Jasprit Bumrah, Rohit Sharma, Tilak Verma, Trent Boult, Naman Dhir, Robin Minz, Karn Sharma, Ryan Rickelton, Deepak Chahar, Will Jacks, Ashwani Kumar, Mitchell Santner, Reece Topley, Shrijith Krishnan, Raj Angad Bawa, Venkat Satyanarayana Raju, Bevon Jacobs, Arjun Tendulkar, Vignesh Puthhur, Suryakumar Yadav

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB)

Rajat Patidar (c), Virat Kohli, Yash Dayal, Josh Hazlewood, Phil Salt, Jitesh Sharma, Liam Livingstone, Rasikh Dar, Suyash Sharma, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Swapnil Singh, Tim David, Romario Shepherd, Nuwan Thushara, Manoj Bhandage, Jacob Bethel, Devdutt Padikkal, Swastik Chhikara, Lungi Ngidi, Abhinandan Singh, Mohit Rathee

Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH)

Pat Cummins (c), Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Heinrich Klassen, Nitish Reddy, Ishan Kishan, Mohammad Shami, Harshal Patel, Rahul Chahar, Adam Zampa, Atharva Taide, Abhinav Manohar, Simarjeet Singh, Zeeshan Ansari, Jaydev Unadkat, Kamindu Mendis, Aniket Verma, Eshan Malinga, Sachin Baby

Delhi Capitals (DC)

Axar Patel (c), KL Rahul Jake Fraser-McGurk, Karun Nair, Abhishek Porel, Tristian Stubbs, Kuldeep Yadav, T Natrajan, Mitchell Starc, Sameer Rizvi, Ashutosh Sharma, Mohit Sharma, Faf du Plessis, Mukesh Kumar, Darshan Nalkande, Vipraj Nigam, Dushmanta Chameera, Donovan Ferreira, Ajay Mandal, Manvanth Kumar, Tripurana Vijay, Madhav Tiwari

Rajasthan Royals (RR)

Sanju Samson (c), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, Shimron Hetmyer, Sandeep Sharma, Jofra Archer, Wanindu Hasaranga, Maheesh Theekshana, Akash Madhwal, Kumar Kartikeya Singh, Nitish Rana, Tushar Deshpande, Shubham Dubey, Yudhvir Charak, Fazal Farooqi, Vaibhav Suryavanshi, Kwena Maphaka, Kunal Rathore, Ashok Sharma

Gujarat Titans (GT)

Shubman Gill (c), Jos Buttler, B. Sai Sudharshan, Shahrukh Khan, Kagiso Rabada, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Rahul Tewatia, Rashid Khan, Nishant Sindhu, Mahipal Lomror, Kumar Kushagra, Anuj Rawat, Manav Suthar, Washington Sundar, Gerald Coetzee, Mohammad Arshad Khan, Gurnoor Singh Brar, Sherfane Rutherford, R. Sai Kishore, Ishant Sharma, Jayant Yadav, Glenn Phillips, Kareem Janat, Kulwant Khejroliya

Lucknow Super Giants (LSG)

Rishabh Pant (c), David Miller, Aiden Markram, Nicholas Pooran, Mitchell Marsh, Avesh Khan, Mayank Yadav, Mohsin Khan, Ravi Bishnoi, Abdul Samad, Aryan Juyal, Akash Deep, Himmat Singh, M Siddharth, Digvesh Singh, Shahbaz Ahmed, Akash Singh, Shamar Joseph, Prince Yadav, Yuvraj Chaudhary, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Arshin Kulkarni, Matthew Breetzke

Punjab Kings (PBKS)

Shreyas Iyer (c), Yuzvendra Chahal, Arshdeep Singh, Marcus Stoinis, Glenn Maxwell, Shashank Singh, Prabhsimran Singh, Harpreet Brar, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Yash Thakur, Marco Jansen, Josh Inglis, Lockie Ferguson, Azmatullah Omarzai, Harnoor Pannu, Kuldeep Sen, Priyansh Arya, Aaron Hardie, Musheer Khan, Suryansh Shedge, Xavier Bartlett, Pyla Avinash, Pravin Dubey, Nehal Wadhera