Explained: What Does BCCI's Decision To Allocate Extra Hour For Remaining IPL 2025 Matches Mean

The IPL has made a major rule change for rest of the 2025 season |Courtesy - BCCI

KEY HIGHLIGHTS BCCI announced a major rule change

IPL matches have been given 120 extra minutes

The 2025 IPL final is scheduled on June 3

The Board of Control for Cricket in India ( BCCI ) made some big announcements on Tuesday (May 20) as they revealed that the final of the 2025 Indian Premier League (IPL) will be held at Ahmedabad 's Narendra Modi Stadium instead of Eden Gardens in Kolkata. Hyderabad also lost the right to host the first qualifier and eliminator, which will now be held at Mullanpur's Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium also known as the New Punjab Cricket Association Stadium.

Due to heavy rains in Bengaluru for the last few days, the IPL governing council decided to move Friday's (May 23) clash between Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) away from the Chinnaswamy Stadium. The fixture will now take place at Lucknow's Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow.

The press release issued by the BCCI also revealed another major change to the rules with an extra hour allocation to all remaining league stage games.

"Similar to the playoffs stage, an additional one hour will be allocated to the playing conditions for the remaining matches of the league stage, starting Tuesday, 20 May," said the statement.

What Does the Extra Hour Mean?

The provision only impacts matches when rain plays a part. Usually, there is a period of one hour in every match before overs are lost. However, the new provision means that every match will have a provision of 120 minutes from the scheduled start time before a match is shortened.

Essentially, this means that each match can start as later as 9:30 PM IST (5:30 PM in an afternoon game) and be a full 20-over match. The cut-off time for a five-over match to start will now increase to 11:56 PM IST (7:56 PM in evening games) from 10:56 PM IST (6:56 PM in evening games) previously.

This provision was already in place in playoff matches, but for the 2025 season, it has been put in place for the final league stage matches starting from the Chennai Super Kings vs Rajasthan Royals clash in Delhi.

Rain has hit several parts of the country earlier than expected which has led to a major rain threat on various matches.

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