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Gujarat (Image source- BCCI/IPL)
The schedules for the Indian T20 League 2022 final have been altered. The game will now begin at 8 p.m. (IST) on the 29th of May. Additionally, a closing ceremony also has been added to the schedule on the day of the final. The closing ceremony will feature performances from Bollywood stars.
The closing ceremony is set to begin at 6:30 PM IST and will last 50 minutes. The toss will take place at 7:30 PM IST, with the action beginning 30 minutes later. The final will be played at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.
The announcement came just a day after the news of BCCI planning to change match timings of the next season from 7:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. This was the schedule the league followed in its first ten seasons, from 2008 to 2017.
In its first decade, the tournament's opening and closing ceremonies included Bollywood stars on a regular basis. It was suspended for three years under the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) system, which the present administration followed for the first two years of its tenure. In 2019, the BCCI decided to skip the ceremonies to pay respects to the Pulwama attack martyrs. In 2020 and 2021, the COVID19 pandemic hampered their plans. Even this year, no opening ceremony was held on March 26. The decision to host the closing ceremony was made as an afterthought at a later Apex Council meeting.
In the meantime, the league stage of the Indian T20 is almost at the end. League debutants Gujarat and Lucknow became the first teams to qualify for the playoffs. Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata, on the other hand, are eliminated from the race to the top four. Rajasthan, Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Punjab are still fighting for the final two spots.
The four-match play-offs will be held in Kolkata and Ahmedabad. The former will host Qualifier 1 and the Eliminator on May 24 and 25, while the Qualifier 2 and the Final on May 27 and 29 respectively will be staged in Ahmedabad. With Mumbai and Chennai out of the race to the playoffs, the tournament will witness a new winner since the 2016 season, which was won by Hyderabad.