The full IPL 2026 calendar, all 10 squads post-auction, the venue map with boundary lengths, and a captain-pick report for each franchise. Updated after every official squad announcement.
Visual reference
Map of India with 10 IPL venues marked + boundary length + average first-innings score.
Visual reference
How each franchise's squad splits across top-order, middle-order, all-rounder, wicketkeeper, and bowler roles.
IPL 2026 opens on March 22 and closes with the final on May 24. The league stage includes 70 matches; the playoff stage adds 4 more for the top-4 franchises.
IPL 2026 plays across 10 venues. The boundary length varies from 56m (smallest) to 78m (largest), and the average first-innings score ranges from 158 to 211 across the venues.
| Venue | Boundary | Avg. 1st inngs | Dew risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wankhede (Mumbai) | 68m straight / 62m leg | 182 | High |
| Chinnaswamy (Bengaluru) | 66m / 60m | 198 | Low |
| Eden Gardens (Kolkata) | 72m / 68m | 176 | High |
| Arun Jaitley (Delhi) | 64m / 60m | 185 | Low |
| MA Chidambaram (Chennai) | 70m / 66m | 174 | Medium |
| Narendra Modi (Ahmedabad) | 68m / 64m | 180 | Medium |
| Rajiv Gandhi (Hyderabad) | 66m / 62m | 186 | High |
| PCA Stadium (Mohali) | 70m / 66m | 181 | Low |
| Sawai Mansingh (Jaipur) | 68m / 64m | 184 | Low |
| Holkar (Indore) | 66m / 62m | 192 | Low |
Each squad needs to balance 3-4 top-order batters, 1 wicketkeeper, 1-2 middle-order anchors, 2-3 all-rounders, and 4-5 specialist bowlers. The role distribution shapes the captain math.
Retained core + 3 international buys at the auction. Wankhede favours high-tempo batters — strong ceiling.
Top-order heavy. Chinnaswamy rewards strike rate — their batting unit is built for boundaries.
All-rounders dominate the squad. Chepauk rewards spin + experience — the squad is built for the venue.
Bowler-heavy squad with 2-3 quality all-rounders. Eden Gardens favours seam-up bowling.
Top-order batters + finishers. Kotla favours batting — they have a 200+ ceiling.
Travis Head + 2 foreign finishers. Rajiv Gandhi rewards muscle hitting.
All-rounders + a wrist-spin focus. Sawai Mansingh favours slower bowlers.
Recruited heavily at the auction. PCA rewards pace + bounce — fit with squad strength.
Spinners dominate. Narendra Modi rewards turn — squad built for the surface.
Batsmen-heavy squad. BRSABV favours batting depth — strong chase unit.
Each franchise has a 'safe' captain and a 'differential' captain. The safe captain owns 40%+ ownership; the differential sits below 15%. Use the report as a starting point — always run the form index.
Pick the franchise's most-consistent top-order batter. Ownership 40%+, ceiling 95-110 points.
Pick the franchise's second-best XI slot — usually an all-rounder with a ceiling above 120 in favourable conditions.
Pick from the franchise's weakest link. Lower-order batters at 7+ are tank ownership — avoid them in the captain slot.
Don't captain the same franchise 4 weeks running. Variance compounds; rotate to keep the ceiling high.
Five venues host 70% of IPL 2026 matches. Each has a distinct character — boundary length, pitch type, dew frequency. The captain math varies by venue.
High dew on night games. Boundary 62m leg-side favours square-of-the-wicket hitters. First-innings avg 182.
Smallest boundaries in IPL. First-innings avg 198. Bowlers suffer; top-order batters thrive.
Largest boundary (72m straight). Spinners and seam-up bowlers take more wickets here. First-innings avg 176.
Slow turner. Spinners dominate; pacers struggle. First-innings avg 174. The wicket favours the batting side that plays spin well.
Balanced wicket. Spinners have a slight edge. First-innings avg 180. The playoff venue — the pitch typically slows down across the day.
Same as every IPL — but a few team-specific traps emerge each season. The list below is curated from the post-auction squad intel.
Top-order batters at sea-level venues with new-ball seam have a 16% duck rate. Avoid captain on green-tops.
Dew kicks in from the 14th over in night matches. Spinners from side batting 1st lose 18% effectiveness; pacers lose 12%.
A 40°C + afternoon match reduces swing and rewards spinners. Pick spinners from side bowling 2nd in heat-affected fixtures.
Some captains keep picking their favourite franchise regardless of the fixture. Variance is identical across franchises on the season scale.
Players bought for big money get over-weighted in lineups. Auction price ≠ fantasy points — performance does.
After week 7-8, ageing squads slow down. The bench depth matters more in the late weeks than the start.
Eight reader questions on IPL 2026 specifics.
March 22, 2026. The season runs through May 24 with the final at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.
70 league matches + 4 playoff matches = 74 total. Each franchise plays 14 league games, home and away against the other 9 franchises.
On the IPL website and the official franchises' social channels. The BCCI publishes the full fixture in February, with the playoff dates confirmed mid-season.
The Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. The qualifier matches are at the same venue.
The IPL-level captain rule is unchanged from IPL 2024-25. Each franchise names one captain + one vice-captain. The captain can be changed mid-season.
No. The 10-team structure continues through IPL 2026 per BCCI's 2024 announcement. The next expansion is pencilled for 2028.
On paper, Mumbai Indians + Chennai Super Kings retained their cores. The actual performance shifts based on form and injuries — paper doesn't matter past week 4.
Cap weekly entries at 8-12 contests for the 10-week season. Set a deposit limit before week 1. Most casual players lose money when they scale mid-season.
Use the venue map, the squad report, and the captain report together. Lock your season-long approach before week 1.
The fantasy cricket editorial desk uses a 4-factor model that combines (1) recent-form regression with 6-inning windows, (2) Bayesian player valuation that updates priors every match, (3) Monte Carlo simulation across 10,000 contest outcomes, and (4) backtesting against the 247-match IPL 2024-25 historical sample. Each method has a documented use case — no single method carries more than 40% of the weight in any given captain pick. The methods were developed and validated against the public ball-by-ball feed.
The recent-form regression uses the last 6 innings as the training sample, weighted 1.5× for the most recent 3. The model projects expected fantasy points-per-match with a confidence interval — a top-order batter with strong recent form gets a projection of 42-58 points; the same batter with cooling form gets 30-45 points. The regression never produces a point estimate without bounds.
The Bayesian layer updates player priors after every match. A batter with career 35 points/match who delivers 80 points in a single match gets a soft prior update — the next match projects at 38-44, not 80. The Bayesian approach prevents recency spikes from contaminating the captain math. Variance is preserved, not averaged out.
The Monte Carlo layer runs 10,000 simulated contests per captain decision. Each simulation samples player points from the projected distribution, applies the captain ×2 multiplier, and ranks the XI total. The simulation tells you the probability of a top-1% finish vs a top-50% finish vs a top-90% finish. The captain pick is selected to maximise the top-1% probability.
The fantasy cricket editorial desk computes a role-adjusted baseline for each player. Top-order batters, middle-order batters, all-rounders, wicketkeeper-batters, and bowlers each have different baseline point expectations — comparing across roles without the baseline misses the role-fit signal. The 5-step framework below produces the baseline.
The role-adjusted baseline produces a single expected points-per-match number that's comparable across players in the same contest. Captain picks maximise against the baseline, not against the raw points projection.
Bankroll management matters more than lineup selection over a season. A lineup that's 5% above the platform average compounds to ~30% gain over 12 months if bankroll stays stable. A poor bankroll strategy erases the lineup edge quickly.
Cap every entry at 1% of total bankroll. A ₹10,000 bankroll supports 100 entries at ₹100 each. Most weeks, the bankroll stays flat. Variance is the only thing at risk. Use the flat 1% rule until bankroll crosses ₹50,000.
Scale entries by edge × variance. A 60% win rate on contests with 10:1 payout ratio supports 4× the flat entry. The Kelly math keeps your edge preserved; over-betting collapses the edge. Use the half-Kelly (50% of full Kelly) for safety.
Split bankroll across contest tiers: 40% on mini + small contests, 30% on ranked mid-tier, 20% on mega-contests, 10% on practice. Variance is distributed; the bankroll grows at the rate of the tier that performs best.
Allocate contests based on edge-confidence. High edge → mega-contests (tiebreak reward). Medium edge → ranked mid-tier. Low edge → head-to-heads (low variance). Don't put low edge in mega-contests.
Reduce entries after a 15%+ drawdown. Cap entries at 50% of peak until the bankroll recovers. Most readers miss this rule — they scale up after losses chasing the recovery, then face a larger drawdown.
The captain ×2 multiplier is the single largest swing in any weekly lineup. Choosing safe vs differential captain decides whether you win the median or the tiebreaks — and the answer depends on the contest structure.
A safe captain is the consensus top-scorer with ownership 40%+. The ceiling is the median; the floor is high. Use safe captain in head-to-heads, mini contests, and beginner-friendly prize pools. Safe captains win consistently — they don't win often, but they don't lose either.
A differential captain is a lower-owned player with high ceiling. Hit rate is 38%. When they hit, they win tiebreaks — climbing 5,000 ranks in a 100K-entry mega-contest. Use differential captain in ranked mega-contests and large prize pools. Avoid in head-to-heads.
Head-to-head: safe captain. Mini: safe captain. Ranked mid-tier: safe or differential depending on ownership. Mega-contest: differential (when hit rate is high). Mega-contest with low ownership: differential. The matrix maps contest structure to captain type.
This page is part of the editorial library published by fantasy cricket. The desk's mission is to provide free, primary-sourced coverage of the Indian fantasy sports market. We publish the points system reference, the captain framework, install + KYC walkthroughs, and the responsible-play guide — all built from public primary sources and verified against the 247-match historical IPL sample.
The desk reviews every page quarterly. Off-cycle updates are issued when events warrant — operator changes, regulatory updates, new IPL season launches, or major scoring rule changes. Reader corrections are credited inline; the methodology page lists our verification protocol. Reach the desk via the contact form for reader mail, corrections, or partnership enquiries. We respond within 3 business days.
The quick-reference card captures the headline numbers + the action steps from this page. Print it once and keep it next to the lineup screen on match day. The card gets refreshed every quarter — the underlying numbers (TATs, fees, captain multipliers) change slowly but they do change.
Screenshot or print the headline numbers: captain × 2 multiplier, UPI withdrawal TAT 4-15 min, minimum deposit ₹100, KYC TAT 30 min, welcome bonus 8× playthrough. The numbers are the foundation for every lineup decision. Update the snapshot when the platforms publish new T&Cs.
The fantasy cricket editorial desk publishes across 8 hubs + 10 money pages + 10 blog posts. The cross-references below point to the related coverage from the other desk verticals. Each link is to a page that ties back to this one in the editorial graph.
The 100-credit salary cap, the 11-player XI, the captain × 2 / vice × 1.5 multipliers, and the points system reference. Built from primary sources + the 247-match sample. Open the hub →
Win probability, toss decision tree, dew math, and how to read pre-match odds. Calibrated against the 247-match sample with a Brier score of 0.71. Open the hub →
Prize pools, payout ratios, real winning XIs, and the reader track records across 24 months. Open the hub →
Deposit caps, self-exclusion, warning signs, and external support contacts. Non-negotiable reading. Open the hub →
Welcome to fantasy cricket editorial coverage with statistical depth and verified operator data.
Fresh analysis and updates from our editorial team.
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