The last season of nine teams
The sixth IPL ran from 3 April to 26 May 2013, seventy-six matches across twelve venues, with Raipur and Ranchi hosting the league for the first time. Sunrisers Hyderabad played their opening season after the termination of Deccan Chargers. Kolkata Knight Riders came in as champions and finished seventh. And on 21 May, with the playoffs already under way, Pune Warriors India walked out of the league over a dispute with the BCCI about their franchise fee. They were formally terminated in October. Nine teams have never taken the field in the IPL since.
Gayle's 175, and a low-scoring final
For three weeks the cricket was the story, and most of it belonged to one innings. On 23 April at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Chris Gayle made 175 not out off 66 balls against Pune Warriors, the fastest hundred and the highest individual score made in Twenty20 cricket anywhere. Royal Challengers Bangalore finished on 263 for 5. Elsewhere, Amit Mishra took the third hat-trick of his IPL career and Sunil Narine took one of his own. James Faulkner became the first bowler in the competition with two five-wicket hauls. David Miller hit 101 not out from 38 balls to chase down 190 at Mohali.
Michael Hussey, thirty-seven years old, scored 733 runs for Chennai Super Kings and took the Orange Cap. Dwayne Bravo took 32 wickets for the Purple. Shane Watson was named player of the series. Chennai topped the table and beat Mumbai Indians in Qualifier 1 at the Feroz Shah Kotla; Mumbai came back through Rajasthan Royals in Qualifier 2 and met Chennai again at Eden Gardens on 26 May.
The final was nothing like the season that produced it. Mumbai made 148 for 9, hauled there by Kieron Pollard's unbeaten 60 from 32 balls. Chennai never found the rate against Harbhajan Singh and Lasith Malinga, and MS Dhoni's 63 not out ended with the match already gone. Twenty-three runs. Six seasons in, Mumbai Indians finally had the trophy.
What 16 May started
Ten days before that final, Delhi Police arrested three Rajasthan Royals players, S. Sreesanth, Ankeet Chavan and Ajit Chandila, along with several bookies, on charges of spot-fixing. A separate Mumbai Police investigation led to the arrest of the actor Vindoo Dara Singh and, on 24 May, of Gurunath Meiyappan, the Chennai Super Kings team principal and son-in-law of the then BCCI president N. Srinivasan, on charges of betting. Rajasthan Royals co-owner Raj Kundra was questioned in June and suspended by the BCCI.
The Supreme Court appointed a three-member committee under Justice Mukul Mudgal in October 2013. Its report, submitted in February 2014, found that Meiyappan had violated the IPL anti-corruption code and had bet on matches. The court then set up the Justice R. M. Lodha Committee in January 2015 to fix the punishment. On 14 July 2015 the Lodha panel handed life bans to Meiyappan and Kundra and suspended India Cements and Jaipur IPL, the owners of Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals, for two years. Both franchises missed the 2016 and 2017 seasons and returned in 2018.
The BCCI had banned Sreesanth and Chavan for life in September 2013, and Chandila in January 2016. In July 2015 a Patiala House court discharged the accused in the criminal case; the Delhi Police challenged that order. The Supreme Court lifted Sreesanth's ban in March 2019.