EXPLAINED: How do the 2023 IPL playoffs work?

Franchise tournaments around the world have struggled to find the right balance between making the league matter but also ensuring exciting playoff action at the business end.

The IPL has used a unique format for its playoffs for some time and they made no changes when two extra teams were added in 2022.

In the IPL the top four teams after the round-robin phase go into the knockout phase but they carry some rewards for how they did during the regular season.

The top two teams on the ladder at the end of the IPL regular season are afforded two opportunities to reach the championship match.

This term that has been the Gujarat Titans and the Chennai Super Kings who will contest the first playoff match which is called Qualifier 1.

The IPL does not use straighforward semi-finals but instead there are three playoff matches before the final.

Qualifier 1’s winners will go straight into the final while the team that comes off second best will get a second chance.

Qualifier 1 is followed by the Eliminator, which is the match between the third and fourth placed teams on the IPL standings.

The teams in third and fourth have to win twice to make it to the IPL final with the loser of the Eliminator going home just as the name suggests.

Meanwhile the winner of the Eliminator goes on to face the team that failed to win Qualifier 1.

That third match is called Qualifier 2 and the winner goes into the IPL Final.

The IPL has used this playoff system since the 2011 campaign.

Only once has the winner of the IPL been a team that has contested the IPL eliminator on all other occasions, the team has been drawn from the top two.

The final has often been a rerun of Qualifier 1, but the result hasn’t always been repeated.

This season Qualifier 1 and the Eliminator will take place in Chennai on Tuesday 23 May and Wednesday 24 May, followed by Qualifier 2 on Friday in Ahmedabad.

The IPL final will take place on Sunday 28 May 2023.