Six days after the Wankhede
India won the World Cup on 2 April 2011. The IPL began on 8 April. Whatever you want to say about the schedule, the country was not short of appetite. Dhoni, Yuvraj, Gambhir, Kohli, Zaheer and Sachin went from a lap of honour at the Wankhede to their franchise dressing rooms inside a week, and the fourth IPL opened with the highest expectations any season had carried.
Ten teams, and a format that stuck
Two new franchises arrived: Pune Warriors India and Kochi Tuskers Kerala. Ten teams playing a full double round-robin would have meant 94 matches, so the league split them into two groups of five. Each side played 14 games — everyone in its own group twice, four teams from the other group once, and one team from the other group twice.
The bigger change was at the back end. Semi-finals were dropped for the Page playoff system, still used today. Qualifier 1 puts the top two against each other, and the winner goes straight to the final. The Eliminator knocks out one of the third and fourth-placed sides. The Eliminator winner then plays the Qualifier 1 loser in Qualifier 2 for the last final spot. Finishing in the top two now bought you a second life, and it has shaped how teams approach the last fortnight of every season since.
Gayle, who was not supposed to be there
Royal Challengers Bangalore did not buy Chris Gayle at the auction. He came in mid-season as a replacement for the injured Dirk Nannes and then scored 608 runs in twelve innings, more than anyone else, plus eight wickets. He took Player of the Tournament in a losing side. His 90 off 47 in Qualifier 2 against Mumbai Indians at Chepauk was the innings that put Bangalore in the final.
At the other end of the pitch, Lasith Malinga took 28 wickets for Mumbai, a record for an IPL season at the time, and Mumbai still finished third, beaten by Bangalore in Qualifier 2.
Chennai, again
Chennai Super Kings won the opening match of the season by two runs and closed it by winning the final by 58. In between they beat Bangalore in Qualifier 1 with Raina 73 not out. The final at Chepauk on 28 May was one-sided in a way IPL finals rarely are: Murali Vijay 95 off 52, Chennai 205 for 5, Bangalore 147 for 8. Vijay took the match award. Chennai became the first side to win the IPL twice and the first to win it back to back, a double nobody matched until Mumbai in 2019 and 2020.
What it changed
Ten teams did not last. Kochi Tuskers Kerala played this one season and were terminated before the next. Pune lasted three. The playoff format, by contrast, has outlived almost every other rule the IPL has tried, and 2011 is where it began. For Indian viewers, it was also the season when the calendar's shape became clear: a World Cup in April and a full IPL starting the same week is a lot of cricket, and the argument about player workload that still runs every summer effectively started here.