The 2015 Indian Premier League season (also known as IPL 8 or, for sponsorship reasons, Pepsi IPL 2015) was the eighth season of the Indian Premier League, a Twenty20 cricket league established by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in 2007. The tournament featured eight teams and was held from 8 April 2015 to 24 May 2015. The tournament's opening ceremony was held at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on 7 April 2015. Kolkata Knight Riders were the defending champions having won the title in the 2014 season.
On 24 May 2015, Mumbai Indians defeated Chennai Super Kings by 41 runs in the final at Eden Gardens, Kolkata, to win the IPL title for the second time. Mumbai captain Rohit Sharma was awarded player of the match in the final for his knock of 50 from 26 balls. Andre Russell of the Kolkata Knight Riders was named Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the season. This was the last time that Sony Television Network broadcast the tournament before Star Sports Network took the broadcasting rights from the 8th season and are currently bearing the broadcasting rights for the tournament.
Players auction
The eight franchises retained a total of 123 players for the 2015 IPL season before moving into the auction. The released players were provided an option to register themselves for auction. Six players were traded across teams before the auction took place. At the 2015 IPL auction held on 16 February at Bangalore, Yuvraj Singh was sold to Delhi Daredevils for 16 crore, a record bid in IPL auction history. A total of 67 players were sold out in the auction and the franchises spent a total of 87.60 crore to buy the players.
Officials The 2015 IPL season saw 26 match officials, 13 Indian umpires and four match referees officiating. 26 match officials (umpires and referees) participated in a two-day workshop, organised by the BCCI, in preparation for the 2015 IPL season. The workshop was held at the Cricket Centre, Mumbai, on 4 and 5 April 2015, from 9am to 5pm.
Venues 12 venues were selected to host the league stage matches. Mumbai, Pune and Ranchi hosted Qualifier 1, Eliminator and Qualifier 2 respectively and Kolkata hosted the Final.
Group stage
Ahmedabad Bangalore Chennai Delhi Rajasthan Royals Royal Challengers Bangalore Chennai Super Kings Delhi Daredevils Sardar Patel Stadium M. Chinnaswamy Stadium M. A. Chidambaram Stadium Feroz Shah Kotla Capacity: 54,000 Capacity: 36,760 Capacity: 37,220 Capacity: 55,000 Hyderabad Kolkata Sunrisers Hyderabad Kolkata Knight Riders Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium Eden Gardens Capacity: 55,000 Capacity: 67,000 Mohali Mumbai Kings XI Punjab Mumbai Indians Punjab Cricket Association Stadium Wankhede Stadium Capacity: 40,000 Capacity: 33,320 Mumbai Pune Raipur Vishakhapatnam Rajasthan Royals Kings XI Punjab Delhi Daredevils Sunrisers Hyderabad Brabourne Stadium Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium Raipur International Cricket Stadium ACA-VDCA Stadium Capacity: 20,000 Capacity: 36,000 Capacity: 50,000 Capacity: 38,000
Playoffs
Kolkata Mumbai Final Qualifier 1 Eden Gardens Wankhede Stadium Capacity: 67,000 Capacity: 33,320 Pune Ranchi Eliminator Qualifier 2 Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium JSCA International Cricket Stadium Capacity: 36,000 Capacity: 39,000
IPL Fanpark initiative BCCI started a new initiative IPL Fanpark to spread the reach of IPL across the country. As a part of the initiative, IPL was made available in the stadiums across 15 cities, apart from the 12 venues hosting the matches, on a large screen. The access to these stadiums was free and based on first-come first-served basis.
Opening ceremony The opening ceremony was held at the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata, on 7 April 2015. The captains of all eight teams signed the "MCC Spirit of Cricket" pledge. The ceremony featured live performances of Hrithik Roshan, Anushka Sharma, Farhan Akhtar, Shahid Kapoor among others. The ceremony began after a one and a half hours delay due to rain.
Teams and standings Points table Top 4 teams were qualified for the playoffs advanced to the Qualifier advanced to the Eliminator ("C" refers to the "Champions" of the Tournament. 'R'(2nd Position), '3' and '4' are the positions of the respective teams in the tournament.)
League stage
Matches
The 20 wides bowled during the match are a record in the IPL
The 13 wides bowled by Rajasthan is record in a single innings in the IPL
Playoff stage
Preliminary Qualifier 1
Eliminator
Qualifier 2
Final
Statistics
Most runs Player Team Runs David Warner Sunrisers Hyderabad 14 14 562 Lendl Simmons Mumbai Indians 13 13 540 Ajinkya Rahane Rajasthan Royals 14 13 540 * AB de Villiers Royal Challengers Bangalore 16 14 513 * Virat Kohli Royal Challengers Bangalore 16 16 505 * The player with the most runs at the end of the tournament received the Orange Cap.
Most wickets Player Team Dwayne Bravo Chennai Super Kings 17 16 26 3/22 Lasith Malinga Mumbai Indians 15 15 24 4/23 Yuzvendra Chahal Royal Challengers Bangalore 15 14 23 3/40 Ashish Nehra Chennai Super Kings 16 16 22 4/10 Mitchell Starc Royal Challengers Bangalore 13 12 20 4/15 The player with the most wickets at the end of the tournament received the Purple Cap.
Most catches Player Team Dwayne Bravo Chennai Super Kings 17 13 Ravindra Jadeja Chennai Super Kings 17 13 Suresh Raina Chennai Super Kings 17 11 Ambati Rayudu Mumbai Indians 15 9 Kieron Pollard Mumbai Indians 16 9 Source: ESPNcricinfo
References
External links
Tournament website on ESPNcricinfo