16 years ago, the Indian Premier League (IPL) played its first game of the 2010 season in March instead of following the usual April schedule

Since 2022, the Indian Premier League has started the season towards the end of March, but when the tournament began in 2008, it followed the schedule that started in April. In fact, from 2008 to 2018, 10 seasons commenced in April, but one started in March, years before the IPL rescheduled itself to the March calendar.

In the following paragraphs, check which IPL game was the first to be played in the month of March.

March 12, 2010

The Indian Premier League had its first March season opener in 2010, when the Kolkata Knight Riders and the now-defunct Deccan Chargers clashed at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai. Captained by Sourav Ganguly, the Riders won the game against Adam Gilchrist’s side by 11 runs.

KKR’s late surge

As we are all aware, the Riders were one of the worst sides when the IPL started, and therefore, in the initial years, the team had very few victories. In this game, too, the top order of the Kolkata Knight Riders struggled, and the team was reduced to a score of 31 for four.

(Credit- The Hindu)

However, the Riders witnessed a late surge from their middle-order batters Angelo Mathews and Owais Shah. Shah hit 58 runs in 46 balls at a strike rate of 126.08, whereas Mathews added 65 runs in 46 balls at a strike rate of 141.30. The duo’s effort helped KKR post a decent target of 161 runs.

Defender’s downfall

Deccan Chargers, the defending champions who had won the tournament in 2009, started off strongly with Gilchrist hitting 54 and VVS Laxman scoring 22. However, the rest of the batting line-up could not stabilise the innings, as wickets fell at regular intervals, and none of the remaining nine batters scored more than 20 runs. DC’s innings ended at 150 runs for seven wickets, and KKR won the game by 11 runs.

Apart from this game, another season opener was played in March, i.e., on 23 March, 2019, between Chennai and Bengaluru. Last but not least, a season opener match was also played in September 2020 between Chennai and Mumbai.

This year, as per the rescheduled calendar that has been the norm since 2022, the IPL’s first match will take place on March 28.