New Delhi: The BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) is considering expanding the IPL season to 94 matches from the 2028 season. However, despite the longer season, there are currently no plans to add new teams to the tournament as of yet.
The tournament was expanded to the 74-game format in 2022 after the addition of Gujarat Titans and Lucknow Super Giants to the competition. Furthermore, there were plans to extend the tournament to 84 matches from 2025, but scheduling conflicts saw the plan being eventually scrapped.
It is worth noting that the IPL’s window in the FTP (Future Tours Programme) has been fixed for mid-March until the end of May for the next two seasons. However, the IPL chairman Arun Dhumal took centre stage and talked about the board seriously considering moving to a full home-and-away format of the tournament for the next media cycle.
“Definitely, that might be an opportunity. We’ve been discussing in ICC, we’ve been discussing in-house in BCCI. Given how the interest of the fan is changing with regard to bilateral and ICC events, in regard to franchise cricket and T20 cricket, we’ll have to talk more seriously about it and see how we can create maximum value for the stakeholders of the game,” Dhumal told ESPNcricinfo.
“Ideally, we’d want a larger window, or to maybe go on from 74 to 84 or 94 at some point… So that every team gets to play against every team home and away, for that, you need 94 games,” he added.
