Leave everything aside: The most popular T20 tournament across the globe, IPL, is here. The T20 extravaganza will commence April 9, Saturday.
IPL has all the ingredients to make it a grand success yet again. Two new teams — Rising Pune Supergiants and Gujarat Lions — have replaced Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Rajasthan Royals (RR).
As promised by IPL Chairman Rajeev Shukla, the tournament continues to have eight teams battling for the coveted trophy. Rising Pune Supergiants and Gujarat Lions will be playing for two seasons of the IPL in place of CSK and RR.
Defending champions Mumbai Indians will begin their title defence against MS Dhoni's Supergiants at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
A total of 60 matches, including the qualifiers and the big final, will be played over a period of almost two months starting April 9.
The foreign players have arrived in India and joined their respective squads, and many of the Indian players have started training with their team. The opening ceremony of the IPL will be held Friday in Mumbai. The stage is set for the action to begin in another two days' time.
Hold on to your seats as your favourite T20 tournament is here, and IPL 2016 is sure going to be one heck of a ride.
Click here for the complete schedule of IPL 2016.
Let us take a look at the squads of all the eight teams that will play in IPL 2016:
Mumbai Indians (MI): Rohit Sharma (C), Lendl Simmons, Ambati Rayudu, Corey Anderson, Unmukt Chand, Kieron Pollard, Parthiv Patel, Mitchell McClenaghan, Lasith Malinga, Marchant de Lange, Akshay Wakhare, Harbhajan Singh, Hardik Pandya, Jagadeesha Suchitch, Jasprit Bumrah, Nitish Rana, R Vinay Kumar, Shreyas Gopal, Siddhesh Lad, Jos Buttler (wk), Nathu Singh, Tim Southee, Krunal Pandya, KP Kamath, Jitesh Sharma and Deepak Punia.
Click here for MI team preview.
Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR): Gautam Gambhir (C), Kuldeep Yadav, Manish Pandey, Piyush Chawla, Robin Uthappa (wk), Sheldon Jackson, Suryakumar Yadav, Umesh Yadav, Yusuf Pathan, Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Brad Hogg, Chris Lynn, Morne Morkel, Shakib Al Hasan, Jaydev Unadkat, Ankit Singh Rajpoot, John Hastings, Jason Holder, Colin Munro, Rajgopal Sathish, Manan Ajay Sharma.
Click here for KKR team preview.
Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB): Virat Kohli (C), AB de Villers (wk), David Wiese, Adam Milne, Chris Gayle, Abu Nechim Ahmed, Harshal Patel, Kedar Jadhav, Mandeep Singh, Sarfaraz Khan, Sreenath Arvind, Varun Aaron, Yuzvendra Chahal, Shane Watson, Stuart Binny, Kane Richardson, Travis Head, Samuel Badree, Praveen Dubey, Vikramjeet Malik, Akshay Karnewar, Vikas Tokas, Iqbal Abdullah, Sachin Baby.
Rising Pune Supergiants (RPS): MS Dhoni (C & wk), Ajinkya Rahane, Faf du Plessis, Kevin Pietersen, Steve Smith, Mitchell Marsh, Ravichandran Ashwin, Adam Zampa, Thisara Perera, Irfan Pathan, Albie Morkel, Saurabh Tiwary, Baba Aparajith, Murugan Ashwin, Rajat Bhatia, Ankush Bains, Ishant Sharma, Ankit Sharma, Jaskaran Singh, Deepak Chahar, Ashok Dinda, Scott Boland, Peter Handscomb, RP Singh, Ishwar Pandey.
Click here for RPS team preview.
Gujarat Lions (GL): Suresh Raina (C), Ravindra Jadeja, Brendon McCullum, James Faulkner, Dwayne Bravo, Praveen Kumar, Dale Steyn, Dinesh Karthik, Dwayne Smith, Dhawal Kulkarni, Eklavya Dwivedi, Aaron Finch, Andrew Tye, Ishan Kishan, Pravin Tambe, Jaydev Shah, Pradeep Sangwan, Shadab Jakati, Shivil Kaushik, Amit Mishra, Sarabjit Ladda, Akshdeep Nath, Umang Sharma and Paras Dogra.
Click here for GL team preview.
Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH): David Warner (C), Shikhar Dhawan, Moises Henriques, Eoin Morgan, Kane Williamson, KL Rahul, Naman Ojha, Parvez Rasool, Trent Boult, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ashish Reddy, Bipul Sharma, Karn Sharma, Ricky Bhui, Siddharth Kaul, Yuvraj Singh, Ashish Nehra, Deepak Hooda, Mustafizur Rahman, Aditya Tare, Barinder Singh Sran, Ben Cutting, Vijay Shankar, Abhimanyu Mithun, T Suman.
Click here for SRH team preview.
Kings XI Punjab (KXIP): David Miller (C), Shaun Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Manan Vohra, Murali Vijay, Nikhil Naik, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur, Mitchell Johnson, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Anureet Singh, Sandeep Sharma, Mohit Sharma, Kyle Abbott, KC Cariappa, Marcus Stoinis, Farhaan Behardien, Pradeep Sahu, Armaan Jaffer, Swapnil Singh.
Click here for KXIP team preview.
Delhi Daredevils (DD): Zaheer Khan (C), Amit Mishra, Shreyas Iyer, Mohammad Shami, Shahbaz Nadeem, Mayank Agarwal, Jayant Yadav, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Imran Tahir, JP Duminy, Quinton de Kock, Pawan Negi, Chris Morris, Sanju Samson, Carlos Brathwaite, Karun Nair, Rishabh Pant, Joel Paris, Sam Billings, Chama Milind, Pratyush Singh, Mahipal Lomror, Saeed Khaleel Ahmed, Akhil Herwadkar, Pawan Suyal.
