The Indian Premier League (IPL) is a BIGGEST Twenty20 cricket league in India contested during the Summer of every year by eight teams representing eight different cities in India. The IPL was founded by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in 2008. The IPL is the Favourite cricket league in worldwide and in 2014 ranked sixth by average attendance among all sports leagues.
Format
Currently, with eight teams, each team plays each other twice in a home-and-away round-robin format in the league phase. At the conclusion of the league stage, the top four teams will qualify for the playoffs. The top two teams from the league phase will play against each other in the first Qualifying match, with the winner going straight to the IPL final and the loser getting another chance to qualify for the IPL final by playing the second Qualifying match. Meanwhile, the third and fourth place teams from league phase play against each other in an eliminator match and the winner from that match will play the loser from the first Qualifying match. The winner of the second Qualifying match will move onto the final to play the winner of the first Qualifying match in the IPL Final match, where the winner will be crowned the Indian Premier League champions.
Source ( Wikipedia )
Match rules
IPL games utilise television timeouts and hence there is no time limit in which teams must complete their innings. However, a penalty may be imposed if the umpires find teams misusing this privilege. Each team is given a two-and-a-half-minute “strategic timeout” during each innings; one must be taken by the bowling team between the ends of the 6th and 9th overs, and one by the batting team between the ends of the 13th and 16th overs.
Source ( Wikipedia )