2024 Indian Premier League

The 2024 Indian Premier League (also known as IPL 17 and branded as TATA IPL 2024) was the 17th edition of the Indian Premier League, a franchise Twenty20 cricket league in India, organized by the Board of Control for Cricket in India. The tournament featured ten teams competing in 74 matches from 22 March to 26 May 2024. It was held across 13 cities in India, with Chennai hosting the opening ceremony and the final. Chennai Super Kings were the defending champions, having won their fifth title during the previous season after beating Gujarat Titans.

In the final, Kolkata Knight Riders defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad by 8 wickets to win their third IPL title.

Format
The format returned to the same as 2022, unlike 2023, with changes in group order. Each team will be playing twice against the teams in their group, against the team in the same row in the other group, and once against the remaining four teams in the other group. After the group stage, the top four teams based on aggregate points qualified for the playoffs. In this stage, the top two teams compete with each other (in a match titled "Qualifier 1"), as do the remaining two teams (in a match titled "Eliminator"). While the winner of Qualifier 1 directly qualified for the final match, the losing team has another chance to qualify for the final match by competing against the winning team of the Eliminator match (in a match titled "Qualifier 2"). The winner of this subsequent Qualifier 2 match will move on to the final match. The team that wins the final match will be crowned the Indian Premier League winners.

Schedule
On 14 February 2024, the chairman of the Indian Premier League announced that the tournament would take place in India and that the schedule would be finalized after a discussion with the Indian government and other agencies. It was also mentioned that the allocation of matches to states would depend on the election schedule for the Lok Sabha Election 2024 to be released by the Election Commission of India. On 21 February, it was announced that the schedule would be announced in two halves as the dates of the elections has not been confirmed till then.

A part of the schedule of the season's fixtures was announced on 22 February 2024 which included the schedule for the first 17 days, consisting of 21 matches. The opening match of the tournament was to be played on 22 March at the M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai between defending champions Chennai Super Kings and the Royal Challengers Bengaluru. The remaining fixtures were announced on 25 March with the last group match to be played between Rajasthan Royals and Kolkata Knight Riders on 19 May at ACA Stadium, Guwahati. It was announced that both Qualifier 1 and Eliminator would be played at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad from 21 to 22 May, and that Qualifier 2 and final would be played in Chennai, with the venue hosting its third IPL final after 2011 and 2012.

Rule changes
Bowlers could now bowl two bouncers per over, as trialled in India's domestic T20 tournament, the 2023–24 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.

Teams
The same 10 teams from the previous season returned with few changes to the team personnel.

Personnel changes
The ten franchises retained 173 players for the 2024 IPL season and seven players were traded across teams before the auction. On 11 December 2023, the IPL Governing council released a list of 333 players, including 214 Indian and 119 foreign players who were available for the auction. The auction was held outside India for the first time, at Coca-Cola Arena, Dubai, United Arab Emirates on 19 December 2023. 72 players were sold at the auction for a spend of inr 2300000000 including 30 overseas players. Mitchell Starc became the most expensive player in the history of IPL when he was bought by Kolkata Knight Riders for inr 247500000 surpassing inr 205000000 paid by Sunrisers Hyderabad for Pat Cummins earlier in the same auction and inr 185000000 paid by Punjab Kings for Sam Curran in the 2023 auction.

Venues
The league stage was played at 13 stadiums across India. The opening match was played at M.A. Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai. Delhi Capitals played their first two home games at ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, due to the Arun Jaitley Stadium at Delhi being unavailable immediately after hosting the 2024 Women's Premier League. The ACA Cricket Stadium and the HPCA Cricket Stadium hosted two home matches each of Rajasthan Royals and Punjab Kings respectively. The first two matches of the playoffs were played at Ahmedabad with Chennai hosting the final leg of the playoffs including the final.

Opening ceremony
In January 2024, the BCCI invited bids for staging the opening ceremony. The following month, Kasi Viswanathan, the CEO of the Chennai Super Kings told that the opening ceremony would be held in Chennai by virtue of the venue being the home of the defending champions.

The opening ceremony took place on 22 March at the M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. Actors Tiger Shroff and Akshay Kumar promoted and performed for a song sequence from their film Bade Miyan Chote Miyan. Singer Sonu Nigam delivered a rendition of "Vande Mataram", while A. R. Rahman and Mohit Chauhan joined for "Maa Tujhe Salaam", while the former went solo for "Jai Ho". Chauhan also sang his hit song "Masakali". Singer Neeti Mohan also performed at the event.

Playoffs
The Indian Premier League playoffs were held from 21 to 26 May 2024. The Qualifier 1 and Eliminator matches were played at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. The Qualifier 2 and the final were played at the M. A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.

Title sponsorship
The Tata Group renewed their contract as the title sponsors of the Indian Premier League for a tenure of 5 years (2024–28) for inr 25000000000 — the highest-ever sponsorship amount in the history of the league. The TATA Group previously held the title sponsorship rights for the IPL in 2022 and 2023.

Broadcasting
Star Sports is the official TV broadcaster of the season, while JioCinema is the official digital broadcaster.

Most runs

 * Orange Cap holder 

Most wickets

 * Purple Cap holder

Most Valuable Player
Sunil Narine won this season's Most Valuable Player award and became the first cricketer to win this award for the third time in the tournament.