How the IPL Works: League Stage, Playoffs, Auction and Impact Player

By the Live Cricket Zone editorial team · Last reviewed 24 October 2026

The Indian Premier League is a T20 franchise competition run by the Board of Control for Cricket in India. It is held once a year, usually from late March to late May or early June. It has more rules than a normal T20 tournament because its teams are franchises with salary purses, not national sides, and because the league adds a few playing regulations of its own. This guide covers the format, the points table, the playoffs, squad-building and the rules that make an IPL match different from a T20 international. For live scores and the franchise list, see our IPL page.

The league stage

Ten franchises take part. Each plays 14 league matches, which means 70 league games in total. Ten teams cannot all play each other home and away in 14 games, so the schedule is balanced through groupings: each side plays five of the other teams twice, home and away, and the remaining four once. Which opponents fall into which category changes from season to season.

Every match is a standard 20-over game with the usual powerplay and fielding restrictions. If the scores are level, the match is decided by a Super Over, and further Super Overs are played if that is tied too. So a league match cannot end as a tie.

The points table

Teams level on points are separated by net run rate. A side's NRR is how fast it scored minus how fast it conceded, across all its matches. In the closing week of the league stage several teams are often level, so NRR decides who goes through. That is why teams sometimes chase targets faster than they need to.

The playoffs

The top four after the league stage go into a four-match playoff that rewards the top two:

1. Qualifier 1: first plays second. The winner goes straight to the final.
2. Eliminator: third plays fourth. The loser is out.
3. Qualifier 2: the loser of Qualifier 1 plays the winner of the Eliminator for the other place in the final.
4. Final.

A top-two finish therefore gives a team two chances to reach the final. Third or fourth means winning three knockout games in a row. Seventy league matches and four playoff matches make a 74-match season.

How squads are built: retention, auction and purse

IPL squads are not chosen like national teams. Each franchise has a fixed purse, a salary budget set by the league, and builds a squad within minimum and maximum size limits. A squad may include only a limited number of overseas players, up to eight.

Before an auction, franchises may retain some players from their existing squad, and the cost of each retained player is taken from the purse. Every few years the league holds a mega auction, which caps retentions and sends most players back into the pool to reset the competition. In between there are smaller auctions, where franchises fill gaps left by released players. The exact number of retentions, the purse and the price each retention costs are set by the league before each cycle and have changed several times, so check the current regulations rather than an older article.

At the auction, players are offered in sets with a base price that they choose from a list of bands. Franchises bid upwards and the highest bidder signs the player for that amount. A player who attracts no bids goes unsold, though unsold players can be brought back later in the auction. Franchises can also trade players with each other between seasons, and they can sign replacements for injured players under the league's rules.

The Impact Player rule

Since 2023 the IPL has used the Impact Player rule. Along with its playing XI, each team names a short list of substitutes at the toss. At any point in the match it may bring one of them in to replace a member of the XI. The replaced player takes no further part, and the Impact Player can bat and bowl in full, unlike a traditional substitute fielder.

In practice, a team that bats first can replace a batter with a bowler for the second innings, and a chasing team can do the reverse. Every side effectively plays with a twelfth specialist. That deepens batting orders, and it is one reason first-innings totals rose sharply after the rule came in. The rule was introduced by the BCCI for its own competitions. It does not apply in T20 internationals.

The overseas limit

A team may field at most four overseas players in its XI. The Impact Player rule respects this limit: a team that starts with four overseas players can only bring in an Indian player as its Impact Player. Because of this limit, a franchise's overseas signings are among its most important decisions. Most teams use their four slots on match-winners and fill the rest of the side with Indian players.

Other things that are specific to the IPL

• Strategic timeouts. Each innings has two short timeouts, one taken by the fielding side and one by the batting side within set windows of overs.
• Player reviews. The Decision Review System is used in every match, and the league allows reviews of wides and no-balls in addition to dismissals.
• Reserve days. The final has a reserve day in case of rain. League matches do not, which is why no-results happen.
• Home grounds. Each franchise plays most of its home games at a fixed home ground, and pitch conditions vary a great deal between them. Our pitch guide explains why that matters.

Reading an IPL match on this site

During the season our live scores page and IPL page show each match as it happens, and the points table appears while the league is running. Our scorecard guide explains the abbreviations. How a scorecard marks the Impact Player and the player replaced varies between scoring providers, so check the notes under the batting and bowling tables.