Nine teams, seventy-six matches
Kochi Tuskers Kerala were terminated by the BCCI in September 2011 after one season, over a breach of the franchise agreement. That left nine teams for the fifth IPL, which ran from 4 April to 27 May 2012 and still managed 76 matches — a double round-robin of 72, then Qualifier 1, the Eliminator, Qualifier 2 and the final. Nine teams and an odd number meant somebody sat out most days, and the season stretched across eight weeks.
Television ratings for the opening week were the worst the league had recorded: an average of 3.76 TVR, down 18.7 per cent on 2011, with the opening ceremony managing 1.3. The commentary at the time was that there was simply too much of it. By the end, cumulative reach across the season had risen to 163 million, higher than any previous edition, and the final drew a larger audience than any IPL final before it. Both things were true at once, which is a fair summary of the IPL's fifth year.
Gayle at 733, Narine at nobody-knows
Chris Gayle scored 733 runs for Royal Challengers Bangalore, the most anyone had made in an IPL season to that point. Morne Morkel took 25 wickets and the Purple Cap for a Delhi Daredevils side that topped the table and then lost both playoff matches it played.
The player who defined the season, though, was Sunil Narine. Kolkata Knight Riders had bought a Trinidadian off-spinner almost nobody in India had seen bowl. He was unreadable for most of the tournament, took the Player of the Series award and the Golden Player prize, and made an eight-over spell in the middle of a KKR innings feel like a strategic asset rather than a gap to be survived.
Chepauk, 27 May
Kolkata Knight Riders had spent four seasons as the league's punchline — bad results, worse press, a coach sacked, an owner in the headlines. In 2012 they finished second, beat Delhi by 18 runs in Qualifier 1 and went to Chennai to play the defending champions in their own ground.
Chennai made 190 for 3, Suresh Raina 73 off 38. Kolkata needed 191 at Chepauk in a final, and the man who got them most of the way was Manvinder Bisla, a reserve wicketkeeper from Haryana who had played a handful of matches. He made 89 off 48. Kolkata got home at 192 for 5 with two balls to spare. Bisla took the match award. Chennai had scored 222 in Qualifier 2 two days earlier, with Murali Vijay making 113 off 58, and still did not defend the title.
The parts that went to the police
On 14 May 2012, the news channel India TV broadcast a sting operation accusing five players of spot-fixing. The BCCI suspended all five that week: Mohnish Mishra, Shalabh Srivastava, T. P. Sudhindra, Amit Yadav and Abhinav Bali. None had played international cricket. Mishra, who was on the Pune Warriors roster, was recorded saying franchises paid players in black money, admitted the remark and apologised. The channel stood by the tape.
Separately in the same fortnight, Luke Pomersbach of Bangalore was arrested on a molestation complaint and later granted interim bail; two Pune Warriors players were detained during a police raid on a Mumbai rave party; and Shah Rukh Khan was banned from the Wankhede for five years after an argument with ground security. It was not the league's finest month, and the harder reckoning was still a year away.