In a departure from usual practice, the IPL governing council has released the dates for the next three seasons. Accordingly, IPL 2025 will run from March 14 to May 25, while the 2026 season will be played between March 15 and May 31, and the 2027 season will be held between March 14 and May 30.

In an email to franchises on Thursday, the IPL governing council has termed these tournament dates as windows, but it is likely that these will end up as the final dates for the competition.

The 2025 season will have a total of 74 matches, the same as the last three seasons. However, this number is 10 matches less than the 84 listed by IPL in 2022 when the media rights for the 2023-27 cycle were sold.

The Statesman understands that the idea behind early announcement of dates, two days ahead of the IPL 2025 mega auction in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, is to ensure the participation of contracted overseas players for all the three upcoming seasons.

As a result, according to Espncricinfo, the overseas players from most full-member countries have also received the green signal from their respective cricket boards to play for the next three years in the IPL.

Cricket Australia has given clearance to all its international and domestic players to feature in IPL 2025. However, in 2026, Australia are slated to play a three-match ODI series in Pakistan, which Cricket Australia revealed will be “concluding no later than March 18.”

Australian players will join IPL 2026 after the series against Pakistan. The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has also submitted a list of 18 centrally contracted players who will be available for the next three IPL seasons. Players from South Africa, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, West Indies, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe, are also slated to be fully available for the next three seasons.

IPL auction on Nov 24, 25

A galaxy of stars, including Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Mitchell Starc, and Glenn Maxwell will be up for grabs in the IPL mega auction, scheduled in Jeddah on November 24 and 25.

A total of 574 players are set to be featured in the mega auction. Out of the 574 Players, 366 are Indian and 208 are overseas, including 3 players from associate nations. The auction will include 318 Indian uncapped players and 12 uncapped overseas players.

204 slots will be up for grabs with 70 available slots for overseas players. Rs 2 crore is the highest reserve price with 81 players opting to be in the highest bracket. The two-day mega auction will commence at 3 PM IST on November 24.