Author: Madhammer

Sri Lanka return to India in December 2026 for a six-match white-ball series — three ODIs and three T20Is between 13 and 27 December, across six cities. It is the second time the two sides meet inside five months, after India’s two-Test tour of Sri Lanka in August.

Note: this page covers the December white-ball series in India. For the two-Test series played in Sri Lanka in August 2026, see our India v Sri Lanka Test preview.

The full schedule

Confirmed by the BCCI on 26 March 2026. All times IST.

One-day internationals

#	Date	Venue	Start
1st ODI	Sunday 13 December 2026	Delhi	2:00 PM
2nd ODI	Wednesday 16 December 2026	Bengaluru	2:00 PM
3rd ODI	Saturday 19 December 2026	Ahmedabad	2:00 PM

Twenty20 internationals

#	Date	Venue	Start
1st T20I	Tuesday 22 December 2026	Rajkot	7:00 PM
2nd T20I	Thursday 24 December 2026	Cuttack	7:00 PM
3rd T20I	Sunday 27 December 2026	Pune	7:00 PM

Six matches, six cities, and a series that runs across Christmas — the second T20I falls on 24 December and the decider on the Sunday after.

One of the most-played fixtures in cricket

The scale of this rivalry is easy to underestimate.

Format	Played	India won	Sri Lanka won	No result / tie
ODIs	172	99	59	14
T20Is	34	21	9	4

172 ODIs is an extraordinary number — among the most-played fixtures in the history of the format, and far more than India have played against Australia, England or New Zealand. The two boards have scheduled each other relentlessly for four decades, partly through geography and partly through the commercial reliability of the fixture.

India lead 99-59, a healthier margin than against most opponents. In T20Is the gap is wider still at 21-9.

Why the fixture is played so often

• Geography. Short flights and minimal time-zone adjustment make it the easiest tour either board can arrange.
• Broadcast value. An India series is the most commercially valuable fixture Sri Lanka Cricket can host.
• Shared conditions. Both sides play on surfaces that favour spin, so neither needs a long acclimatisation window.
• Tri-series history. A great many of those 172 ODIs came in the multi-team tournaments common through the 1980s and 1990s.
• Asia Cup meetings add further fixtures on top of bilateral cricket.

The consequence is a head-to-head record with a sample size large enough to mean something — unlike most international rivalries, where 30 or 40 matches spread across decades tell you relatively little.

Where Sri Lanka stand

Sri Lanka arrive having secured direct qualification for the 2027 ODI World Cup as one of the eight highest-ranked sides at the 30 September 2026 cut-off — alongside Australia, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, England, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

They are also T20 World Cup winners, having taken the 2014 title in Bangladesh, and they reached the finals in 2009 and 2012 before that — three finals in six years. Our T20 World Cup winners list carries every edition.

In the longer format the picture is harder. Sri Lanka sit sixth in the World Test Championship on 41.67% from four matches, a small sample that can move sharply in either direction. That side of the rivalry is covered in our India v Sri Lanka Test preview.

The venues

City	Match	Notes
Delhi	1st ODI	Arun Jaitley Stadium — historically high-scoring, short square boundaries
Bengaluru	2nd ODI	Chinnaswamy — among the most batting-friendly grounds in India
Ahmedabad	3rd ODI	Narendra Modi Stadium — the largest capacity in world cricket
Rajkot	1st T20I	Traditionally a high-scoring venue
Cuttack	2nd T20I	Barabati — an infrequent international host
Pune	3rd T20I	MCA Stadium — the series decider

Cuttack is the one worth noting. Barabati Stadium hosts international cricket relatively rarely, so a T20I there on Christmas Eve is a genuine occasion for the region. Ahmedabad, by contrast, has become India’s default venue for finals and marquee fixtures.

December conditions and the dew factor

This is the part that shapes the cricket more than anything else in an Indian December.

The 2:00 PM ODI start means the second innings is played under lights, and in mid-December that puts it squarely in the dew window at several venues. Dew makes the ball difficult to grip, which affects spinners most and can make chasing meaningfully easier.

• Delhi in mid-December — cold evenings and the highest dew risk on the ODI leg.
• Fog is a genuine possibility in the north at this time of year and can delay a start.
• Bengaluru is mild and among the most comfortable venues on the tour.
• Ahmedabad and Rajkot are drier, with less dew than the northern grounds.
• Cuttack and Pune sit in between.
• The 7:00 PM T20I start puts the entire second innings under lights.

The toss carries more weight in an Indian December than at most times of year, and captains treat it accordingly. That is a description of conditions, not a forecast about outcomes — we do not publish those.

Where it fits in a very busy season

Dates	Fixture	Where
15–27 Aug 2026	Sri Lanka — 2 Tests	Away
27 Sep – 17 Oct 2026	West Indies — 3 ODIs, 5 T20Is	Home
22 Oct – 1 Dec 2026	New Zealand — 12 matches	Away
13–27 Dec 2026	Sri Lanka — 3 ODIs, 3 T20Is	Home
3–9 Jan 2027	Zimbabwe — 3 ODIs	Home
21 Jan – 3 Mar 2027	Australia — 5 Tests	Home

The scheduling is punishing. India’s New Zealand tour ends on 1 December and this series begins on 13 December — twelve days between finishing a twelve-match tour on the other side of the world and starting a home series. Our New Zealand tour preview covers that tour, and the India home season 2026-27 guide carries the full home fixture list.

Squad rotation across this stretch is close to certain, particularly with the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2027 preview following in January.

Following it from India

Format	Start (IST)	Typical finish
ODI	2:00 PM	Around 10:00 PM
T20I	7:00 PM	Around 10:30 PM

Both are convenient domestic fixtures — an afternoon ODI and a prime-time T20I. Sri Lanka is only 30 minutes ahead of IST in any case, so nothing about this series requires adjustment for an Indian audience.

Tickets are sold per venue through the host state association’s appointed partner rather than centrally. The Christmas Eve T20I at Cuttack and the Pune decider are the ones likely to move fastest. Our ticket-buying guide covers the process and the scam patterns worth knowing.

What we do not publish

No odds, tips, predictions or win probabilities — on this page or anywhere on this site. Squads had not been named at the time of writing, and any XI circulating this far out is speculation.

What we do publish is verifiable: BCCI-confirmed dates and start times, head-to-head records taken from match-by-match data, and standings as they currently sit. Our India cricket schedule guide explains how the Indian cricket year is built, and the West Indies tour preview covers the series that opens the home season.

The short version

Sri Lanka play three ODIs and three T20Is in India from 13 to 27 December 2026. ODIs are at Delhi, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad, starting at 2:00 PM IST; T20Is at Rajkot, Cuttack and Pune at 7:00 PM IST, with the second falling on Christmas Eve.

It is one of the most-played fixtures in cricket — 172 ODIs, India leading 99-59, and 34 T20Is with India ahead 21-9. Sri Lanka arrive having secured direct qualification for the 2027 World Cup, and as 2014 T20 World Cup winners. Dew is the defining condition of an Indian December and makes the toss unusually significant. See our India v Sri Lanka Test preview, India home season 2026-27 guide and cricket betting ID page for more.

What a 172-match record actually tells you

Most international head-to-head records are too small to mean much. Two sides meeting thirty or forty times across four decades produces a number that can be swung by a single strong generation on either side.

This one is different. 172 ODIs is a sample large enough to describe something real — and what it describes is not a rivalry in the competitive sense so much as a fixture that has been played continuously through every era of both teams.

What the sample includes	Why it matters
Sri Lanka’s pre-1996 period	Before they became a major ODI force
Their peak years	When they were among the strongest sides in the world
India’s rebuilding phases	Several, across four decades
Tri-series and multi-team events	A large share of the 172, particularly from the 1980s and 1990s
Asia Cup meetings	Additional fixtures on top of bilateral cricket
Both home and away conditions	Roughly balanced, given the geography

India’s 99-59 lead therefore carries more weight than a similar margin would in a smaller fixture. It is not a snapshot of current form; it is an average across nearly every phase both teams have been through. Our Asia Cup guide covers the continental tournament that adds still more meetings to the tally.

Why the T20I gap is wider than the ODI gap

Set the two records side by side and the difference is worth pausing on.

Format	India win share (excluding no results)	Matches
ODIs	Roughly 63%	158 with a result
T20Is	Roughly 70%	30 with a result

India lead more comfortably in the shorter format, which runs against the usual pattern — T20 is generally the format where gaps between sides narrow, because a single player can decide a match in twenty minutes.

Two things are worth noting before reading too much into it. First, the T20I sample is 34 matches against 172, so it is far less settled. Second, T20 internationals only began in the mid-2000s, which means that record covers a period when India’s white-ball resources were at their deepest and Sri Lanka were rebuilding after their peak generation retired.

A record built entirely within one era says less than one built across five. That is the honest reading, and it applies in both directions.

Six cities, six different questions

A six-match series across six venues means no side settles into conditions, which is deliberate.

• Delhi opens the ODI leg in the coldest, dewiest conditions of the tour.
• Bengaluru offers the most batting-friendly surface and the mildest evenings.
• Ahmedabad closes the ODIs at the largest ground in world cricket.
• Rajkot starts the T20Is on a traditionally high-scoring surface.
• Cuttack hosts a rare international on Christmas Eve.
• Pune takes the decider, at a ground used regularly for both international and franchise cricket.

Moving a squad through six cities in fifteen days is its own test, and it is one of the reasons touring sides in India often look sharper in the second half of a series than the first.

What a December white-ball series is for

With the 2027 ODI World Cup eleven months away and both sides already qualified, it is fair to ask what a six-match series in December is actually for.

1. Squad depth. Six matches in a fortnight is enough to look at fringe players properly, particularly with India also touring New Zealand until 1 December.
2. Conditions rehearsal. The 2027 tournament is in southern Africa, so Indian December conditions are not a direct match — but competitive fifty-over cricket is scarce enough that any of it has value.
3. Rotation. With a five-Test series against Australia starting six weeks later, workload management across formats becomes the priority.
4. Commercial scheduling. A home India series in the December window is among the most valuable slots in the calendar.
5. Continuity for Sri Lanka. Regular cricket against a top side is exactly what a team rebuilding towards a World Cup needs.

The 2027 ODI World Cup guide sets out what both sides are ultimately preparing for, including the tournament’s unusual Super 7 structure.

Planning around the series

A few practical notes if you intend to follow it properly.

• Nothing here requires a time-zone adjustment — every match is on Indian time.
• The ODI leg runs Sunday, Wednesday, Saturday, which is a comfortable rhythm to follow.
• The T20I leg is Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday, finishing the series on a weekend.
• Two fixtures fall over Christmas — 24 and 27 December.
• Fog can delay northern starts in mid-December; Delhi is the venue to watch for that.
• Confirm broadcast arrangements against the official listing rather than assuming.

If you follow the cricket through the markets, what the individual market names mean is explained in our cricket markets guide — we cover how they work and never what to do with them. And for the women’s game, the Women’s T20 Asia Cup guide covers a tournament where Sri Lanka arrive as defending champions.

Two meetings in five months

This is the second India–Sri Lanka series inside a single season, and the pairing is unusual enough to be worth setting out.

When	Format	Where	Result context
15–27 Aug 2026	2 Tests	Galle and Colombo	World Test Championship points
13–27 Dec 2026	3 ODIs, 3 T20Is	Six Indian cities	White-ball, no championship attached

Two tours, two countries, two formats, four months apart. That is a lot of cricket between the same two sides in one season, and it is only possible because the travel between them is trivial — the reason the fixture has been played 172 times in the first place.

It also means the December series arrives with recent form between the sides already established, which is rarer than it sounds. Most bilateral series follow a gap of a year or more.

Reading a dead-rubber risk

A three-match series has a structural quirk worth knowing: it can be decided with a match still to play.

Win the first two ODIs and the third is a dead rubber — which in practice means rotation, debuts and a different-looking eleven. That is not a criticism of the format; three-match series are the modern standard because they fit the calendar. But it does mean the value of the final match to a viewer can change entirely depending on what happened in the first two.

• The 3rd ODI at Ahmedabad on 19 December could be a decider or a dead rubber.
• The 3rd T20I at Pune on 27 December is in the same position.
• Dead rubbers often produce the most interesting selection, if not the most interesting cricket.
• Both fall on a weekend, which matters for attendance either way.
• A 2-0 lead after two matches is common in this fixture given the head-to-head record.

If you are choosing which matches to follow closely, the first two of each leg carry guaranteed competitive weight. The third may or may not.

India’s next assignment after this series is the Zimbabwe tour of India 2027 — three ODIs in the opening week of January.

This is an editorial preview from the team at Readdy Anna Cricket. It covers schedules, venues and records only — we do not publish odds, tips, predictions or win probabilities. Fixtures can change; confirm against BCCI before booking travel or tickets. Readdy Anna Cricket is for adults 18 and over. Online gaming laws in India changed under the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 and vary by state — check the rules where you live. Free confidential support is listed on our responsible gaming page.

India play twelve matches in New Zealand between 22 October and 1 December 2026 — five T20Is, five ODIs and two Tests. It is the largest inbound international series New Zealand Cricket has ever hosted, and only the third time India have toured there across all three formats, after 2008-09 and 2019-20.

It also arrives two years after New Zealand did something no side had managed in the history of Test cricket in India: a 3-0 whitewash on Indian soil.

The full schedule

All times below are IST, which is what matters if you are watching from India. New Zealand is 7 hours 30 minutes ahead.

Twenty20 internationals

#	Date	Venue	Start (IST)
1st T20I	Thursday 22 October 2026	Christchurch	12:30 PM
2nd T20I	Saturday 24 October 2026	Christchurch	12:30 PM
3rd T20I	Tuesday 27 October 2026	Wellington	12:30 PM
4th T20I	Friday 30 October 2026	Auckland	12:30 PM
5th T20I	Sunday 1 November 2026	Hamilton	12:30 PM

One-day internationals

#	Date	Venue	Start (IST)
1st ODI	Wednesday 4 November 2026	Auckland	7:30 AM
2nd ODI	Saturday 7 November 2026	Wellington	7:30 AM
3rd ODI	Tuesday 10 November 2026	Hamilton	7:30 AM
4th ODI	Friday 13 November 2026	Mount Maunganui	7:30 AM
5th ODI	Sunday 15 November 2026	Mount Maunganui	7:30 AM

Tests

#	Dates	Venue	Start (IST)
1st Test	19–23 November 2026	Wellington	3:30 AM
2nd Test	27 November – 1 December 2026	Christchurch	3:30 AM

The timings are the first thing to understand

Overseas tours are usually described as convenient or inconvenient as a whole. This one is genuinely different depending on the format, and the gap is large.

Format	IST start	What that means in India
T20I	12:30 PM	Lunchtime — the most watchable overseas cricket of the year
ODI	7:30 AM	Early morning, running into the afternoon
Test	3:30 AM	Overnight — the hardest watch on the calendar

The T20Is are the pick of it by a distance. A 12:30 PM start is a lunchtime fixture, which is close to ideal — and unusual for a tour of New Zealand, where the time difference normally pushes everything into the small hours.

The Tests are the opposite. A 3:30 AM start means the first session is over before most of India wakes up, and by the time the working day begins the match is at tea. Anyone planning to follow the red-ball leg properly should plan around the second and third sessions rather than the start of play.

The 2024 whitewash still frames this tour

In October and November 2024, New Zealand toured India for three Tests and won all three.

Test	Venue	Result
1st	Bengaluru	New Zealand won by 8 wickets
2nd	Pune	New Zealand won by 113 runs
3rd	Mumbai (Wankhede)	New Zealand won by 25 runs

The records that fell were substantial. It was the first time any visiting side had whitewashed India 3-0 in a Test series in India. It was New Zealand’s first Test series win in India in 69 years. It ended India’s run of home series victories stretching back twelve years, and it was India’s first home whitewash in twenty-four.

That is the backdrop to a two-Test series in New Zealand’s own conditions. We are not drawing a conclusion from it — no page on this site forecasts anything — but it is the single most relevant piece of recent history between these sides, and any preview that omits it is not telling you much.

Head-to-head: the full picture

Format	Played	India won	New Zealand won	Drawn / no result
Tests	66	22	16	28
ODIs	124	63	52	9
T20Is	32	17	11	4

India lead in all three formats, and none of the margins are commanding. The Test column is the interesting one: 28 of 66 Tests have been drawn — well over a third, a far higher proportion than India’s record against Australia or England, and a reflection of how often weather intervenes in New Zealand.

The ODI record at 63-52 across 124 matches is closer than India’s recent form suggests, and the T20I record at 17-11 is the narrowest lead of the three in percentage terms once no-results are set aside.

India’s history in New Zealand

The 1968 tour is the one worth knowing about, because of what it started.

India won that four-Test series 3-1, and it was India’s first Test series victory anywhere outside India. The first Test at Dunedin produced India’s first overseas Test win. For a side that had been playing Test cricket since 1932, it took thirty-six years to win a series away from home — and New Zealand is where it happened.

Since then the record has been mixed. India have toured in all formats only twice more, in 2008-09 and 2019-20, and New Zealand’s conditions — seam movement, wind, and pitches that behave differently from anything in Asia — have consistently been among the harder assignments for Indian touring sides.

The World Test Championship angle

The two Tests fall inside the 2025-27 WTC cycle, which closes in January 2027. Both sides have something riding on them.

Pos	Team	M	W	L	D	PCT
1	Australia	8	7	1	0	87.50
2	South Africa	4	3	1	0	75.00
3	New Zealand	6	4	1	1	72.22
4	Bangladesh	4	2	1	1	58.33
5	India	9	4	4	1	48.15

New Zealand sit third on 72.22% from six matches. India are fifth on 48.15% from nine. Each Test is worth 12 points, so this series carries 24 — and for India it is the warm-up to the five-Test Border-Gavaskar series that carries 60 more. Our Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2027 preview covers that.

For New Zealand, a strong result here would consolidate a genuine position near the top of the table. For India, two Tests in seaming conditions is a difficult place to repair a percentage.

The venues

Venue	City	Hosting
Hagley Oval	Christchurch	1st and 2nd T20I; 2nd Test
Sky Stadium	Wellington	3rd T20I; 2nd ODI; 1st Test
Eden Park	Auckland	4th T20I; 1st ODI
Seddon Park	Hamilton	5th T20I; 3rd ODI
Bay Oval	Mount Maunganui	4th and 5th ODI

Five venues across twelve matches, with Christchurch and Wellington each hosting a Test alongside white-ball fixtures.

Eden Park in Auckland is the one that produces unusual cricket. It is primarily a rugby ground, and its straight boundaries are famously short — among the shortest used in international cricket — which historically makes it a high-scoring venue for T20. Bay Oval at Mount Maunganui hosts back-to-back ODIs to close that leg, which is a compact arrangement that reduces travel at the end of a long tour.

Conditions from late October to December

This is late spring into early summer in New Zealand, and it is not the settled weather of January and February.

• Seam movement is the defining feature of New Zealand conditions, more so than pace or bounce.
• Wind is a genuine factor, particularly at Wellington, where it affects both bowling and the ball in the air.
• Rain interruptions are realistic in this window — which is part of why so many India-New Zealand Tests have been drawn.
• The Kookaburra ball behaves differently from the SG ball used in India, swinging early and going soft sooner.
• Daylight is long by late November, which helps a five-day Test reach a result.
• Pitches vary by venue more than in most countries; Hagley Oval has historically offered the most for seam.

A crowded few weeks for India

The scheduling here is worth flagging, because it is tight to the point of being awkward.

Dates	Fixture	Where
27 Sep – 17 Oct 2026	West Indies — 3 ODIs, 5 T20Is	Home
22 Oct – 1 Dec 2026	New Zealand — 5 T20Is, 5 ODIs, 2 Tests	Away
13–27 Dec 2026	Sri Lanka — 3 ODIs, 3 T20Is	Home
3–9 Jan 2027	Zimbabwe — 3 ODIs	Home
21 Jan – 3 Mar 2027	Australia — 5 Tests	Home

India finish a home series against West Indies on 17 October and start a T20I in Christchurch on 22 October — five days, including travel to the other side of the world. Twelve days after the New Zealand tour ends, they are back home against Sri Lanka.

Squad rotation across formats is not merely likely here, it is close to unavoidable. Our India home season 2026-27 guide and West Indies tour preview cover the home fixtures either side of this tour, and the India cricket schedule guide explains how the calendar ends up shaped this way.

Why twelve matches?

Twelve internationals in a single inbound series is a lot, and New Zealand Cricket has described it as the largest it has hosted.

The commercial logic is straightforward: an India tour is the most valuable inbound series any board can schedule, because of broadcast revenue and the size of the audience following from India and the diaspora. Extending it to five T20Is and five ODIs rather than the usual three of each is a revenue decision as much as a cricketing one.

The cricketing consequence is that the white-ball legs are long enough to look at players properly. Ten white-ball matches before a two-Test series gives both sides an unusually large sample in the shorter formats, which is not typical of a modern tour.

What we do not publish

No odds, tips, predictions or win probabilities — here or anywhere on this site. Squads had not been named at the time of writing, and any XI you see this far out is speculation.

What we publish is what can be checked: fixture dates and IST start times from the official series listing, head-to-head records taken from match-by-match data, and standings as they currently sit.

Fixture dates and venues for this tour are published by New Zealand Cricket as hosts and by the BCCI on the India side. Touring schedules move more often than home ones, so confirm against those before booking anything around a match.

The short version

India play five T20Is, five ODIs and two Tests in New Zealand from 22 October to 1 December 2026 — twelve matches across Christchurch, Wellington, Auckland, Hamilton and Mount Maunganui, and the largest inbound series New Zealand Cricket has hosted.

Timings split sharply: T20Is at 12:30 PM IST are the most watchable overseas cricket of the year, ODIs are a 7:30 AM start, and the Tests begin at 3:30 AM IST. India lead the head-to-head in all three formats — Tests 22-16 from 66, ODIs 63-52 from 124, T20Is 17-11 from 32 — though 28 of those Tests were drawn.

The context is impossible to ignore: New Zealand whitewashed India 3-0 in India in 2024, the first side ever to do so, and their first series win there in 69 years. Both Tests count towards a WTC cycle in which New Zealand sit third on 72.22% and India fifth on 48.15%. See our Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2027 preview, 2027 ODI World Cup guide and cricket betting ID page for more.

Why so many India–New Zealand Tests end in draws

Twenty-eight draws from sixty-six Tests is a striking proportion — more than one in three — and it is not an accident of scheduling.

• Weather. New Zealand’s Test windows sit in changeable seasons, and lost sessions accumulate quickly across a two- or three-match series.
• Short series. Two-Test tours have been the norm between these sides, which reduces the number of matches that reach a natural conclusion.
• Historically flat Indian surfaces. For long periods, Tests in India against New Zealand were played on pitches that did not deteriorate quickly.
• Rain-affected finishes at Wellington in particular, where the wind and weather can remove a session at short notice.
• Fewer fixtures overall. Sixty-six Tests across decades is far fewer than India have played against England or Australia.

The practical implication for the World Test Championship is significant. A draw earns 4 points of a possible 12 — a third of a win — so a rain-affected two-Test series can leave both sides worse off in percentage terms than they started. In a cycle where India sit on 48.15%, that is not a neutral outcome.

The white-ball legs and the 2027 World Cup

Five ODIs is a substantial series, and it lands in a useful window.

India have already secured direct qualification for the 2027 ODI World Cup as one of the eight highest-ranked sides at the 30 September 2026 cut-off, so nothing on this tour changes their entry. New Zealand are also through. What the series does offer is ten white-ball matches against a strong opponent roughly eleven months before that tournament begins in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.

Conditions are the obvious caveat. New Zealand in November and southern Africa the following October are not similar environments, and preparation value should not be overstated. Our 2027 ODI World Cup guide covers the tournament, its Super 7 format and the qualification picture in full.

Following the tour sensibly

1. Build around the T20Is. At 12:30 PM IST they are the easiest overseas cricket of the year to watch live.
2. Treat the ODIs as a morning fixture. A 7:30 AM start finishes in the early afternoon in India.
3. For the Tests, follow sessions two and three. Play begins at 3:30 AM IST; the middle and final sessions fall in the Indian morning.
4. Expect weather interruptions and check before committing to a full day.
5. Note the back-to-back ODIs at Mount Maunganui on 13 and 15 November.
6. Confirm broadcast arrangements against the official listing rather than assuming.

What the individual market names mean, if you follow the cricket that way, is set out in our cricket markets guide — though as everywhere on this site, we explain how markets work and never what to do with them.

Two Tests is a short series for a hard tour

It is worth naming the structural point. A two-Test series in seaming conditions gives a touring side almost no room to adjust.

Sides arriving in New Zealand typically need a match to calibrate to the Kookaburra ball, the pace of the surfaces and the wind. In a five-Test series that learning happens and there is still time to use it. In a two-Test series it can consume half the contest, which is one reason short away series tend to favour the home side more than their overall record suggests.

The counterweight is that India arrive having played ten white-ball matches in the same country over the preceding month. That is far more acclimatisation than a touring Test side normally gets, even if the formats differ — the light, the air and the grounds will at least be familiar.

This is an editorial preview from the team at Readdy Anna Cricket. It covers schedules, venues, standings and records only — we do not publish odds, tips, predictions or win probabilities. Fixtures can change; confirm against the official source before planning around them. Readdy Anna Cricket is for adults 18 and over. Online gaming laws in India changed under the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 and vary by state — check the rules where you live. Free confidential support is listed on our responsible gaming page.

India’s home season opens on 27 September 2026 with three ODIs and five T20Is against West Indies, spread across eight cities in three weeks. It is a long white-ball tour by modern standards, and it arrives with a subplot most previews will miss.

Two of the three ODIs fall inside the ranking window that decides direct qualification for the 2027 World Cup — and West Indies have already run out of road. They finished tenth, outside the eight automatic places, and must go through a qualifying tournament for the third successive time.

The full schedule

Confirmed by the BCCI on 26 March 2026. All times IST.

One-day internationals

#	Date	Venue	Start
1st ODI	Sunday 27 September 2026	Trivandrum	2:00 PM
2nd ODI	Wednesday 30 September 2026	Guwahati	2:00 PM
3rd ODI	Saturday 3 October 2026	New Chandigarh	2:00 PM

Twenty20 internationals

#	Date	Venue	Start
1st T20I	Tuesday 6 October 2026	Lucknow	7:00 PM
2nd T20I	Friday 9 October 2026	Ranchi	7:00 PM
3rd T20I	Sunday 11 October 2026	Indore	7:00 PM
4th T20I	Wednesday 14 October 2026	Hyderabad	7:00 PM
5th T20I	Saturday 17 October 2026	Bengaluru	7:00 PM

Eight matches, eight different cities. Several sites list the ODI starts incorrectly as a morning fixture — the BCCI advisory says 2:00 PM, which makes them day-night matches with the second innings under lights.

The qualification subplot

This is the context that gives the ODI leg its edge, and it needs the sequence laid out to make sense.

Direct qualification for the 2027 ODI World Cup goes to the hosts — South Africa and Zimbabwe — plus the top eight in the ICC ODI rankings at a cut-off of 30 September 2026. The first two ODIs of this series, at Trivandrum on 27 September and Guwahati on 30 September, fall inside that window.

But the arithmetic had already closed. West Indies, ranked tenth, could not have reached the top eight even by winning both. Afghanistan sealed the final automatic place with a win over Ireland in Belfast, joining Australia, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, England and Bangladesh.

Route	Teams
Hosts	South Africa, Zimbabwe
Top eight on ODI rankings	Australia, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, England, Bangladesh, Afghanistan
Cricket World Cup Qualifier, February 2027	Four places — Ireland, West Indies and the League 2 / Playoff qualifiers

So West Indies arrive in India having just missed a World Cup for reasons that were settled elsewhere. Our 2027 ODI World Cup guide covers the tournament and the qualification pathway in full.

What missing out actually costs West Indies

Worth stating plainly, because it is a significant moment for a side with the history they have.

• It is the third successive time they have had to play the Qualifier to reach a World Cup.
• They failed at that Qualifier in 2023, finishing fifth in the Super Six stage — the first World Cup West Indies had ever missed.
• That absence cost them the 2025 Champions Trophy, a tournament they have not played since 2013.
• They are two-time world champions, having won the first two World Cups in 1975 and 1979.
• The 2027 Qualifier is harsher than before. Only its winner goes straight into the World Cup’s second round; second, third and fourth drop into a Super Series from which one team advances.

The Qualifier is scheduled for February 2027, reported to run from 22 February to 23 March. A side can now win three of four qualifying rounds and still not reach the tournament.

India v West Indies in ODIs: closer than you think

The all-time record surprises people who only remember the last decade.

	Figure
ODIs played	142
India won	72
West Indies won	64
No result or tied	6

An eight-match margin across more than 140 matches is close to even, and it exists because the two sides dominated different eras. West Indies won comfortably through the 1980s; India have won everything recently.

The historical arc

Split the record by period and the story becomes obvious.

Series	Result
West Indies in India, 1983/84	West Indies won 5-0
West Indies in India, 1987/88	West Indies won 6-1
India in West Indies, 1988/89	West Indies won 5-0
—	—
India in West Indies, 2019	India won 2-0
West Indies in India, 2019/20	India won 2-1
West Indies in India, 2021/22	India won 3-0
India in West Indies, 2022	India won 3-0
India in West Indies, 2023	India won 2-1

India have won the last five bilateral ODI series between the sides. Before that, in the 1980s, West Indies won three series by a combined 16-1.

The one result that cuts across the pattern is the most famous of all: India beat West Indies in the 1983 World Cup final at Lord’s, ending West Indian dominance of the tournament and, by most accounts, changing the commercial centre of gravity of the sport permanently.

The T20I record

	Figure
T20Is played	31
India won	19
West Indies won	10
No result	1

India lead more clearly in the short format, but with two caveats worth knowing.

First, the most recent bilateral T20I series went to West Indies — 3-2 in August 2023. Second, and more striking: in T20 World Cup meetings specifically, India trail 3-1, with the sides having met five times in that tournament including the Super 8 fixture at Eden Gardens in 2026.

A side can hold a comfortable overall record and still have lost most of the meetings that mattered most. That is one of the more interesting quirks in this fixture.

Why five T20Is?

Five is longer than the modern standard of three, and the shape tells you something about the purpose.

• Longer T20I series are generally about looking at players rather than settling a rivalry.
• The venues are spread across Lucknow, Ranchi, Indore, Hyderabad and Bengaluru rather than concentrated at marquee grounds.
• It sits early in the season, four months before the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
• India tour New Zealand from October, overlapping this window, so squad rotation across formats is likely.
• The next T20 World Cup cycle gives white-ball fixtures a longer-term purpose.

Our India home season 2026-27 guide sets out how this fits the wider season, and the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2027 preview covers the series that closes it.

The venues

City	Format	Notes
Trivandrum	1st ODI	Season opener; an infrequent international host
Guwahati	2nd ODI	Became India’s 30th Test venue in November 2025
New Chandigarh	3rd ODI	Punjab’s principal venue, having taken over from Mohali
Lucknow	1st T20I	Ekana — historically slower surfaces
Ranchi	2nd T20I	Also hosts the fourth Border-Gavaskar Test in February
Indore	3rd T20I	Traditionally high-scoring
Hyderabad	4th T20I	Good batting surface with pace and bounce
Bengaluru	5th T20I	Chinnaswamy — short boundaries, the series finale

Two are worth noting. New Chandigarh has recently replaced Mohali as Punjab’s main venue and is also the IPL home of Punjab Kings. Guwahati hosts an ODI here in September and a Border-Gavaskar Test in February, a substantial elevation for a ground that only entered the Test roster in late 2025.

Finishing at Chinnaswamy is a deliberate choice for a T20I decider — it is among the most batting-friendly grounds in the country, with the shortest boundaries on the circuit.

Timings and how to follow it

Format	Start (IST)	What it means
ODI	2:00 PM	Day-night; second innings under lights
T20I	7:00 PM	Evening fixture, finishing around 10:30 PM

The 2:00 PM ODI start puts the second innings squarely in the dew window at several venues, which is a genuine factor in Indian white-ball cricket and affects how captains approach the toss. What the individual market names mean is explained in our cricket markets guide — though we do not publish tips on any of them.

Tickets are sold per venue through the host state association’s appointed partner rather than centrally. Weekend T20Is clear fastest, so the Bengaluru finale on a Saturday is the one to plan ahead for. Our ticket-buying guide covers the process and the scam patterns worth knowing.

Weather in late September and October

• Late September — the monsoon is retreating but not gone; Trivandrum in particular can still see rain.
• Guwahati at the end of September — the Northeast retains moisture later than most of the country.
• Early October — generally the most reliable weather of the Indian season.
• Dew becomes a factor at evening fixtures as the month progresses.
• Bengaluru in mid-October — mild, and among the most comfortable venues on the tour.

Where this sits in India’s year

When	What
15–27 Aug 2026	Sri Lanka away — 2 Tests
27 Sep – 17 Oct 2026	West Indies at home — 3 ODIs, 5 T20Is
Oct–Dec 2026	New Zealand away — T20Is, ODIs, Tests
13–27 Dec 2026	Sri Lanka at home — 3 ODIs, 3 T20Is
3–9 Jan 2027	Zimbabwe at home — 3 ODIs
21 Jan – 3 Mar 2027	Australia at home — Border-Gavaskar Trophy, 5 Tests

This series opens a 22-match home season across 17 cities. Our India cricket schedule guide explains how the Indian cricket year is constructed and why the monsoon dictates so much of its shape.

What we do not publish

No odds, tips, predictions or win probabilities — on this page or anywhere on this site. What you get here is what can be checked: BCCI-confirmed dates and start times, head-to-head records taken from match-by-match data, and the qualification position as reported.

Where we are unsure, we say so. Squad lists for this tour had not been announced at the time of writing, and anything you read naming an XI this far out is speculation.

The short version

West Indies play three ODIs and five T20Is in India from 27 September to 17 October 2026, across eight cities. ODIs start at 2:00 PM IST, T20Is at 7:00 PM. The tour opens at Trivandrum and closes at Chinnaswamy in Bengaluru.

The all-time ODI record is closer than most assume — 142 matches, India 72, West Indies 64 — though India have won the last five bilateral series. In T20Is India lead 19-10, but West Indies won the most recent bilateral series 3-2 and lead 3-1 in T20 World Cup meetings.

The backdrop is that West Indies have missed direct qualification for the 2027 World Cup, finishing tenth and facing the Qualifier for a third successive cycle. Two of these ODIs fall inside the 30 September ranking window, but the arithmetic had already closed. See our India home season 2026-27 guide, 2027 ODI World Cup guide and cricket betting ID page for more.

What West Indies bring to a white-ball tour

It is easy to write West Indies off on the basis of a ranking, and the record above shows why that is lazy. This is a side that has won two 50-over World Cups and two T20 World Cups — more T20 world titles than any nation except India.

Their two T20 World Cups came in 2012 and 2016, and they remain the only side with a perfect record in that tournament’s finals: two appearances, two wins. Our T20 World Cup winners list sets out every edition.

The gap between that pedigree and a tenth-place ODI ranking is the central tension of West Indian cricket in this era, and it is more interesting than a scoreline. Franchise T20 leagues around the world are full of West Indian players; the national side has struggled to convert that into consistent international results, particularly over fifty overs.

Why the formats diverge so sharply

The split in the head-to-head numbers is not random. It reflects something structural.

	ODI	T20I
Matches	142	31
India won	72	19
West Indies won	64	10
India win rate	Roughly half	Around two in three
Most recent bilateral series	India won 2-1 (2023)	West Indies won 3-2 (2023)
World Cup meetings	India won the 1983 final	India trail 3-1

Two patterns sit inside that table and they point in opposite directions. Over fifty overs, depth and consistency tend to decide matches, and India’s record has been the stronger one for a decade. Over twenty, a single player can win a game in half an hour — and West Indies have historically had more of those players than almost anyone.

It is also why the World Cup sub-record matters more than the overall one. In a knockout tournament, the format that compresses everything into moments has favoured West Indies against India, even while India were winning the bilateral series comfortably.

What to watch across the tour

Storylines rather than forecasts, since forecasts are not something we publish.

1. Whether the ODI leg feels like a dead rubber. Two of the three fall inside a ranking window that had already closed for West Indies — a strange position for a touring side.
2. How India rotate, with the New Zealand tour overlapping this window from October.
3. Whether the five-match T20I series produces new names, which is usually the purpose of a series that length.
4. Dew at the evening fixtures, particularly as October progresses.
5. The Chinnaswamy finale — short boundaries, a Saturday night, and a series that may still be alive.
6. West Indies’ preparation for the February Qualifier, for which this is effectively the last serious 50-over cricket before it.

That final point is the one that gives the ODI leg its real stakes. West Indies have to win a qualifying tournament in February to reach the World Cup, and three ODIs in Indian conditions is meaningful preparation for a side that will face spin-friendly surfaces there. The 2027 ODI World Cup guide explains what they are playing for.

A note on how we cover tours

Everything on this page comes from the BCCI’s own fixture announcement or from match-by-match records, and where a squad has not been named we have said so rather than guessing at one.

We do the same across the site — the T20 World Cup 2026 recap, the IPL winners list and every tournament page are built the same way. Dates, venues, results and records; no odds, tips or predictions.

The 1983 final, and what it changed

One match in this fixture’s history did more than decide a trophy.

West Indies went into the 1983 World Cup final at Lord’s having won the first two tournaments and lost none of them. India had been given almost no chance. India were bowled out cheaply and then defended the total, taking the title and ending West Indian dominance of the competition in a single afternoon.

The cricketing consequence was significant. The commercial one was larger. That win is widely credited with transforming cricket’s centre of gravity towards India — the audience, the money and eventually the governance followed, and the modern structure of the sport is difficult to imagine without it.

It is worth remembering when the current rankings are quoted. West Indies won the first two World Cups; India have won three across the two white-ball formats since. These two sides have been on opposite sides of the sport’s biggest structural shift, and they meet in September with their positions almost exactly reversed.

Following the tour from outside India

• ODIs at 2:00 PM IST are morning fixtures in the UK and overnight in the Caribbean.
• T20Is at 7:00 PM IST fall in the afternoon in the UK and the morning in the West Indies.
• The Caribbean is roughly 9.5 hours behind IST, so a 7:00 PM start is around 9:30 AM there.
• For Indian viewers both formats are convenient — an afternoon ODI and a prime-time T20I.
• Confirm broadcast arrangements against the official listing rather than assuming.

Many of these players spend August and September in the Caribbean Premier League 2026, which finishes with its final in Barbados on 20 September.

This is an editorial preview from the team at Readdy Anna Cricket. It covers schedules, venues and records only — we do not publish odds, tips, predictions or win probabilities. Fixtures can change; confirm against BCCI before booking travel or tickets. Readdy Anna Cricket is for adults 18 and over. Online gaming laws in India changed under the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 and vary by state — check the rules where you live. Free confidential support is listed on our responsible gaming page.

Australia arrive in January 2027 holding the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for the first time in a decade, and they arrive at the top of a World Test Championship table that India sit fifth in. Five Tests, six weeks, five cities — from 21 January to 3 March 2027.

It is also the last significant block of WTC points available to India before the 2025-27 cycle closes. This is a full preview: the confirmed schedule, what each venue means, the trophy’s history, and the one statistic that frames the whole series — Australia have won only one Border-Gavaskar series in India, and that was in 2004-05.

The schedule

Confirmed by the BCCI in its home-season announcement of 26 March 2026.

Test	From	To	Venue	Start (IST)
1st	Thursday 21 January 2027	Monday 25 January 2027	Nagpur	9:30 AM
2nd	Friday 29 January 2027	Tuesday 2 February 2027	Chennai	9:30 AM
3rd	Thursday 11 February 2027	Monday 15 February 2027	Guwahati	9:00 AM
4th	Friday 19 February 2027	Tuesday 23 February 2027	Ranchi	9:30 AM
5th	Saturday 27 February 2027	Wednesday 3 March 2027	Ahmedabad	9:30 AM

Note the Guwahati start time. It is the only fixture in India’s entire home season that does not begin at 9:30 AM, and the reason is genuinely interesting — more on that below.

What is actually at stake

Two things run in parallel: the trophy itself, and a championship cycle that is nearly over.

Pos	Team	M	W	L	D	PCT
1	Australia	8	7	1	0	87.50
2	South Africa	4	3	1	0	75.00
3	New Zealand	6	4	1	1	72.22
4	Bangladesh	4	2	1	1	58.33
5	India	9	4	4	1	48.15
6	Sri Lanka	4	1	1	2	41.67

The World Test Championship ranks by percentage of available points won, because teams play very different numbers of matches. Every Test is worth 12 points; a win takes all 12, a draw 4, a defeat none.

Five Tests means 60 points on the table — the largest single block remaining to India in this cycle, which closes in January 2027. The arithmetic is straightforward even if the cricket is not: India’s percentage moves further on this series than on anything else they will play.

Who holds the trophy, and how

Australia won the 2024-25 series in Australia 3-1, taking the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for the first time in ten years. Worth stating the scoreline precisely, because a number of summaries record it wrongly — the series produced four results and one draw.

Test	Venue	Result
1st	Perth	India won by 295 runs
2nd	Adelaide	Australia won by 10 wickets
3rd	Brisbane	Match drawn
4th	Melbourne	Australia won by 184 runs
5th	Sydney	Australia won by 6 wickets

India began that tour with one of their better overseas performances of the decade — a 295-run win in Perth — and then lost three of the next four. Jasprit Bumrah was named Player of the Series with 32 wickets, a return that stands somewhat apart from the result around it.

The series also marked the end of a career: R Ashwin announced his retirement from international cricket on 18 December 2024, immediately after the third Test.

The full Border-Gavaskar record

The trophy has been contested since 1996-97, named for Allan Border and Sunil Gavaskar.

Series	Host	Result
1996-97	India	India won
1997-98	India	India won 2-1
1999-2000	Australia	Australia won 3-0
2000-01	India	India won 2-1
2003-04	Australia	Drawn 1-1
2004-05	India	Australia won 2-1
2007-08	Australia	Australia won 2-1
2008-09	India	India won
2010-11	India	India won
2011-12	Australia	Australia won 4-0
2012-13	India	India won 4-0
2014-15	Australia	Australia won 2-0
2016-17	India	India won 2-1
2018-19	Australia	India won 2-1
2020-21	Australia	India won 2-1
2022-23	India	India won 2-1
2024-25	Australia	Australia won 3-1

Seventeen series: India have won 10, Australia 6, and one was drawn — the 1-1 result in Australia in 2003-04.

The statistic that frames this series

Split that table by host country and something stark appears.

	Series played	India won	Australia won	Drawn
In India	9	8	1	0
In Australia	8	2	5	1

Australia have won one Border-Gavaskar series in India in the trophy’s entire history — in 2004-05. Nine series on Indian soil, one Australian win, more than twenty years ago.

India’s home record in this fixture is the strongest thing either side has going into 2027, and it is why a five-Test series at home is so valuable to a WTC campaign that has otherwise gone poorly. We are not offering a view on what happens — no page on this site does — but the historical pattern is worth knowing before the coverage starts.

It is also worth noting the counterweight: India’s two most recent series wins in Australia, in 2018-19 and 2020-21, were achieved away from home, and Australia’s 2024-25 win ended a run of four consecutive Indian series victories.

Nagpur: the opener, 21–25 January

The series begins in Nagpur, and starting a home series there is a familiar choice. The Vidarbha Cricket Association ground has historically produced surfaces that assist spin, often from relatively early in a match.

An opening Test carries disproportionate weight in a five-match series. It sets the tone, it settles selection questions that are still open, and in a percentage-based championship the twelve points are worth exactly as much as the twelve available in the decider — which is not how a series feels while it is being played.

Chennai: 29 January – 2 February

Chepauk is among the most distinctive Test grounds in the country and has a long association with matches that go the distance. The surface traditionally takes spin and rewards patience, and the ground’s reputation for producing results is well earned.

Chennai in late January and early February is comfortable by Indian standards — warm rather than punishing, which matters across five days. The gap between this Test and the next is the longest of the series, at nine days.

Guwahati: the most interesting fixture on the list

This is the one worth paying attention to, and not only because of the cricket.

The Barsapara Cricket Stadium made its Test debut in November 2025, when India hosted South Africa there. It became India’s 30th Test venue, the first ground in the Northeast to stage a Test, and the easternmost Test venue in the country.

• The 9:00 AM start is half an hour earlier than every other Indian Test venue.
• The reason is daylight. The Northeast sees the sun rise and set considerably earlier than the rest of India, which operates on a single time zone.
• It produced a genuine first in Test cricket — a tea interval taken before lunch, because the session structure shifts with the early start.
• Adjustments of this kind are usually reserved for day-night Tests, which makes Guwahati’s arrangement unusual for a standard match.
• Hosting a Border-Gavaskar Test in its second year as a Test venue is a substantial vote of confidence.

There is a harder edge to Guwahati’s short Test history, though. That debut match against South Africa in November 2025 is the Test India lost by 408 runs — the heaviest defeat of their current WTC cycle, and the result that did most to drop them to 48.15%.

So Australia’s third Test comes at a ground where India have played once and lost heavily, at a start time neither side encounters anywhere else, with a session structure that is still novel. Whatever else it is, it will not be routine.

Ranchi: 19–23 February

The JSCA International Stadium Complex is a relatively recent addition to the Test roster and has generally produced surfaces that offer something to spin as a match progresses, without the sharp early turn associated with some Indian grounds.

By the fourth Test of a five-match series in February, workload becomes a genuine factor — particularly for fast bowlers, who by this point will have been through three matches in a month with three-day gaps.

Ahmedabad: the finale, 27 February – 3 March

The series closes at the Narendra Modi Stadium, which holds the largest capacity in world cricket and has become the default venue for Indian finals and deciders. It staged the 2026 T20 World Cup final in March 2026 and the 2026 IPL final that May.

Early March in Ahmedabad is warming rapidly, and heat across five days is a real physical consideration rather than a footnote. If the series is alive going into this Test — and in a five-match contest it usually is — it will be played in front of the largest crowd of the tour.

The scheduling: three-day gaps and one long break

Gap	Between	Days between Tests
1 → 2	Nagpur to Chennai	3
2 → 3	Chennai to Guwahati	8
3 → 4	Guwahati to Ranchi	3
4 → 5	Ranchi to Ahmedabad	3

Three of the four gaps are three days, which in practice means a travel day and two days of recovery. That is a demanding rotation, and it is the main reason modern home Test squads carry more seam-bowling depth than the playing eleven suggests.

The long break in the middle falls between the two most geographically distant venues on the list — Chennai in the far south to Guwahati in the far northeast is close to the full diagonal of the country.

Conditions across January to March

• Late January in Nagpur — cool mornings; fog is a known risk in northern and central India in this period.
• Chennai in early February — warm and humid but comfortable relative to later in the year.
• Guwahati in mid-February — pleasant, with the early start driven by light rather than heat.
• Ranchi in late February — warming, generally dry.
• Ahmedabad in early March — hot, and the most physically demanding conditions of the series.
• Dew is less of a factor in Test cricket than in day-night white-ball matches, but morning moisture can assist seam early.

Following it from India

A home series is the most convenient cricket in the calendar, and the timings are straightforward.

	Detail
Start time	9:30 AM IST — except Guwahati at 9:00 AM
Session length	Roughly two hours each, with lunch and tea intervals
Guwahati exception	Tea is taken before lunch because of the early start
Day’s play	Around six hours plus intervals, weather and light permitting
Fifth-day finishes	Common in India — do not write off a match on day four
Broadcast	Confirm against the official listing rather than assuming

Tickets are sold per venue through the host state association’s appointed partner rather than centrally, and Test tickets are generally far easier to obtain than white-ball tickets. Our ticket-buying guide covers the process and the scam patterns worth knowing.

Where this sits in India’s season

The Border-Gavaskar Trophy closes a home season that opens four months earlier.

When	What
27 Sep – 17 Oct 2026	West Indies — 3 ODIs, 5 T20Is
Oct–Dec 2026	New Zealand away — T20Is, ODIs, Tests
13–27 Dec 2026	Sri Lanka at home — 3 ODIs, 3 T20Is
3–9 Jan 2027	Zimbabwe at home — 3 ODIs
21 Jan – 3 Mar 2027	Australia — Border-Gavaskar Trophy, 5 Tests

Note that there are no home Tests before January. India’s entire home red-ball season is this series, compressed into six weeks. Our India home season 2026-27 guide carries the full fixture list, and the India cricket schedule guide explains why the calendar is shaped this way.

What comes after

The WTC cycle closes in January 2027, which means the final Tests of this series sit at the very end of it. Attention then turns to the 50-over game: the 2027 ODI World Cup guide runs from 4 October to 21 November 2027 in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia, with the eight ranking places already settled at the 30 September 2026 cut-off and the Qualifier following in February 2027.

What we do not publish

No odds, no tips, no predictions, no win probabilities — here or anywhere on this site. A five-Test series against Australia will generate an enormous volume of forecasting, much of it stated with confidence nobody has earned.

What we publish instead is what is verifiable: dates, venues, start times, standings and history. If a page on this site tells you Australia have won once in India since 1996, that is a fact you can check. It is not a prediction about 2027, and we will not dress it up as one.

The short version

The Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2027 runs 21 January to 3 March across Nagpur, Chennai, Guwahati, Ranchi and Ahmedabad. All Tests start at 9:30 AM IST except Guwahati at 9:00 AM, where the early sunset in the Northeast also produces tea before lunch — a genuine first in Test cricket.

Australia hold the trophy after winning 3-1 at home in 2024-25, their first Border-Gavaskar series win in a decade, with Bumrah taking 32 wickets in a losing cause. Across 17 series India lead 10-6 with one drawn — and Australia have won only once in India, in 2004-05. With India fifth in the WTC on 48.15% and Australia top on 87.50%, these five Tests carry 60 points and close the cycle. See our India home season 2026-27 guide, India v Sri Lanka preview and cricket betting ID page for more.

How India reached fifth place

The 48.15% is easier to understand as a sequence than as a number. Nine Tests, four wins, four defeats and a draw — but the shape matters more than the totals.

When	Opponent	Where	Result
Jun–Jul 2025	England	Away	Series level — India won the 2nd by 336 runs and the 5th by 6 runs; England won the 1st by 5 wickets and the 3rd by 22 runs; 4th drawn
Oct 2025	West Indies	Home	India won both — by an innings and 140 runs, then by 7 wickets
Nov 2025	South Africa	Home	India lost both — by 30 runs, then by 408 runs

The England series was as close as a five-match contest gets: a 22-run defeat and a 6-run win inside the same tour. Those margins do not move a percentage table much in either direction.

The home defeat to South Africa is what did the damage. Losing two Tests at home is costly in any format of the championship; losing the second by 408 runs is a different order of result, and it happened on Guwahati’s Test debut — the ground that hosts the third Test of this series.

India go into the Australia series having also played two Tests in Sri Lanka in August 2026, covered in our India v Sri Lanka preview.

Why a draw is worth so little

Worth spelling out, because it changes how a five-Test series is read.

Result	Points	Out of
Win	12	12
Tie	6	12
Draw	4	12
Loss	0	12

A draw earns a third of a win. Across a five-match series, drawing all five returns 20 of 60 points — a 33.3% return that would pull almost any side’s percentage down rather than lift it.

That is the practical reason home series matter disproportionately in this system. Indian conditions have historically produced results rather than draws, and in a percentage table a ground that produces a winner is worth more than one that does not, whichever way the result goes.

Over-rate penalties also deduct points, and have decided placings in previous cycles. A side can lose ground in the table without losing a match.

India’s final white-ball commitment before this Test series is the Zimbabwe tour of India 2027, which finishes on 9 January, twelve days before the first Test.

This is an editorial preview from the team at Readdy Anna Cricket. It covers schedules, venues, standings and history only — we do not publish odds, tips, predictions or win probabilities. Fixtures can change; confirm against BCCI before booking travel or tickets. Readdy Anna Cricket is for adults 18 and over. Online gaming laws in India changed under the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 and vary by state — check the rules where you live. Free confidential support is listed on our responsible gaming page.

Rishabh Pant holds the all-time record — bought by Lucknow Super Giants for ₹27 crore at the 2025 mega auction. Shreyas Iyer sits just behind on ₹26.75 crore.

But the most interesting signing is the third name on the list. At the 2026 auction in Abu Dhabi, Kolkata Knight Riders paid ₹25.20 crore for Cameron Green — the most expensive overseas player in IPL history. And because of a rule most coverage skips over, he will not actually receive that amount.

The most expensive IPL signings

#	Player	Price	Team	Auction
1	Rishabh Pant	₹27.00 crore	Lucknow Super Giants	2025 mega auction
2	Shreyas Iyer	₹26.75 crore	—	2025 mega auction
3	Cameron Green	₹25.20 crore	Kolkata Knight Riders	2026 auction

Green’s fee also makes him the most expensive overseas player ever, passing Mitchell Starc, who went to the same franchise for ₹24.75 crore ahead of the 2024 season.

The rule that changes the number

This is the part worth understanding, because it makes the headline figure misleading.

The IPL applies a maximum salary cap of ₹18 crore on overseas players signed at mini-auctions. Green was bought for ₹25.20 crore, so he receives ₹18 crore — and the excess of ₹7.2 crore goes to the BCCI for player welfare.

So the auction price and the player’s actual earnings are two different numbers. A franchise still commits the full ₹25.20 crore against its purse, but the player does not take it home. That distinction almost never appears in the headline coverage of an auction, and it changes how the record should be read.

Why prices climbed this far

Auction inflation is not simply franchises overpaying. Several structural things push prices up.

• Mega auctions reset almost every squad, so demand for a small pool of proven players spikes at once.
• The overseas limit in the XI means only a handful of foreign players can play, which concentrates bidding on the best of them.
• All-rounders are scarce. A player who bats and bowls solves two selection problems with one slot.
• Purses have grown as the competition’s revenue has grown.
• A bidding war is public and competitive — franchises are bidding in a room, against rivals, on television.
• Retention costs count against the cap, so a team that retains few players arrives with a very large purse to spend.

That last point explains most of the outlier prices. A franchise that goes into a mega auction having retained almost nobody must spend its purse on someone, and the market knows it.

Mega auction versus mini auction

	Mega auction	Mini auction
How often	Every few years	Between mega auctions
Squads	Largely rebuilt	Adjusted at the margins
Purse available	Large	Smaller
Player pool	Very deep	Thinner
Overseas salary cap	Not applied the same way	₹18 crore cap applies
Where the records come from	Pant, Iyer	Green

The two events behave differently, which is why comparing prices across them is not quite like for like. Green’s ₹25.20 crore at a mini auction, against a thinner pool and with a cap on what he can actually earn, is arguably the more remarkable bid of the three.

Does the price tag predict anything?

The honest answer is that it predicts intent, not outcome.

A record fee tells you a franchise identified a specific gap and had the purse to close it. It does not tell you how the player will perform across a season, and the IPL’s history includes expensive signings who struggled and modest ones who did not. We do not publish predictions or tips, so we are not going to dress this up as insight into who will do well — it is simply what the market paid.

What the price does reliably indicate is scarcity. The most expensive players are almost always either wicketkeeper-batters who can bat in the top order, or all-rounders — the two profiles that free up a selection slot.

How the money works for a franchise

1. Each franchise has a fixed purse for the auction, set by the BCCI.
2. Retentions are deducted from that purse before bidding starts.
3. Every bid commits purse, so one large signing constrains the rest of the squad build.
4. Squad size limits apply, including a cap on overseas players.
5. Unspent purse can carry into later windows, subject to the rules of that cycle.
6. A player’s earnings can be capped below the bid, as Green’s case shows.

The constraint that shapes everything is the same one that shapes the competition itself: only a limited number of overseas players can take the field, so depth in Indian players decides most seasons. Our IPL teams and venues covers how that plays out across the ten franchises.

Records worth reading alongside this one

Auction prices are a market record rather than a cricketing one, and they sit oddly next to on-field statistics.

• Virat Kohli leads the IPL run charts, and Yuzvendra Chahal the wickets — both career accumulations.
• Chris Gayle’s 175 remains the highest individual score, set in 2013.
• Sunrisers Hyderabad’s 287/3 is the highest team total.
• Royal Challengers’ 49 all out in 2017 is the lowest.
• Shaun Tait’s 157.71 kmph from 2011 is still the fastest recorded delivery.

Our IPL records guide covers those in detail, including an honest caveat about how reliable speed-gun figures actually are.

The short version

Rishabh Pant is the most expensive player in IPL history at ₹27 crore, signed by Lucknow Super Giants at the 2025 mega auction, with Shreyas Iyer next on ₹26.75 crore.

Cameron Green’s ₹25.20 crore to Kolkata Knight Riders at the 2026 auction is third all-time and the highest ever for an overseas player — but the IPL’s ₹18 crore cap on overseas players at mini-auctions means he receives ₹18 crore, with ₹7.2 crore going to the BCCI for player welfare. The headline number and the player’s earnings are not the same thing. See our IPL winners list and IPL records guide for more.

Retentions and the Right to Match

Auction prices make no sense without understanding what happens before the bidding starts.

1. Each franchise may retain a limited number of players from its existing squad ahead of a mega auction.
2. Every retention costs a set amount against the purse, on a sliding scale — the first retention costs the most.
3. What is left is the auction purse. A team retaining five players arrives with far less to spend than one retaining two.
4. The Right to Match card, where it is in use, lets a franchise match the winning bid for a player it released and reclaim them.
5. Overseas players are capped in the XI, so foreign signings compete for a small number of slots.
6. Uncapped Indian players cost comparatively little, which is where squads find value.

This is the mechanism behind the outlier prices. A franchise that enters a mega auction having retained almost nobody is carrying a very large purse, and everyone in the room knows it must be spent. That knowledge alone pushes bidding upward on the players it obviously needs.

Why wicketkeepers and all-rounders cost the most

Look at the top of the list and a pattern appears immediately: the most expensive signings are almost always players who fill two roles at once.

• A wicketkeeper who bats in the top order occupies one slot but does two jobs, freeing a place elsewhere in the XI.
• An all-rounder does the same thing with bat and ball, and is the scarcest profile in the game.
• Overseas all-rounders are scarcer still, because only a few foreign players can take the field.
• Specialists are cheaper — a batter who does not bowl solves one problem, not two.
• Death bowlers command a premium relative to their output, because so few exist.

Cameron Green is a clean illustration of all of this: an overseas all-rounder, in a mini auction with a thin pool, bought by a franchise that needed exactly that profile.

The Impact Player rule complicates it

The substitution rule that lets a side bring in a player mid-match has had an interesting side effect on squad value.

Because a team can field an extra specialist batter or bowler as an Impact Player, the premium on genuine all-rounders is arguably reduced — a side can now cover both roles without needing one player to do both. That has been a point of open debate within Indian cricket, with the concern being that a rule intended to add tactical interest may discourage the development of exactly the player type the country has historically found hardest to produce.

Whether that shows up in auction prices over time is a longer-term question. What is clear is that squads are now assembled with the rule in mind, so it shapes bidding strategy as much as match tactics.

What the purse actually buys

A record fee is easier to judge in context. A franchise is not simply buying a player — it is spending a fixed, finite budget that has to cover an entire squad.

Every rupee committed to one signing is a rupee unavailable for the other twenty-odd places. A team that spends a quarter of its purse on a single overseas all-rounder has made a deliberate choice to build the rest of the squad from cheaper, largely uncapped Indian players. Sometimes that works; sometimes it produces a top-heavy side with no depth when injuries arrive.

This is why the headline price is a poor guide to whether a signing was sensible. The relevant question is not what the player cost, but what the franchise had to give up elsewhere to afford them — and that only becomes visible once the full squad is assembled.

Auction prices are not a cricketing record

It is worth separating the two kinds of number that get quoted together.

• Runs, wickets and dismissals are counted from the scorecard and are reliable.
• Auction prices are the outcome of a live market on one afternoon, shaped by who else was bidding and how much purse they had left.
• A price reflects scarcity and timing, not ability in any absolute sense.
• The same player would fetch a different figure at a different auction, in a different room.
• Capped earnings mean the headline figure may not even be what the player receives.

None of that makes the record uninteresting — it is one of the most-searched facts about the competition. It just means it belongs in a different category from the on-field records, and reading it as a ranking of talent misunderstands what an auction is.

This is an editorial records page from the team at Readdy Anna Cricket. It covers results and history only — we do not publish odds, tips, predictions or win probabilities. Records change; confirm against an official source before relying on them. Readdy Anna Cricket is for adults 18 and over. Online gaming laws in India changed under the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 and vary by state — check the rules where you live. Free confidential support is listed on our responsible gaming page.

Ten editions, six different champions, and one team that has now pulled clear of the rest. This is the complete ICC Men’s T20 World Cup winners list from the first tournament in 2007 to India’s home triumph in 2026 — every host, every final and every winning margin.

India lead with three titles. England and West Indies have two each; Australia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka one apiece.

T20 World Cup winners: every edition

Year	Host	Winner	Runner-up	Final
2007	South Africa	India	Pakistan	India 157/5 beat Pakistan 152
2009	England	Pakistan	Sri Lanka	Pakistan 139/2 beat Sri Lanka 138/6
2010	West Indies	England	Australia	England 148/3 beat Australia 147/6
2012	Sri Lanka	West Indies	Sri Lanka	West Indies 137/6 beat Sri Lanka 101
2014	Bangladesh	Sri Lanka	India	Sri Lanka 134/4 beat India 130/4
2016	India	West Indies	England	West Indies 161/6 beat England 155/9
2021	UAE / Oman	Australia	New Zealand	Australia 173/2 beat New Zealand 172/4
2022	Australia	England	Pakistan	England 138/5 beat Pakistan 137/8
2024	West Indies / USA	India	South Africa	India 176/7 beat South Africa 169/8
2026	India / Sri Lanka	India	New Zealand	India 255/5 beat New Zealand 159

Titles by nation

Nation	Titles	Years
India	3	2007, 2024, 2026
England	2	2010, 2022
West Indies	2	2012, 2016
Australia	1	2021
Pakistan	1	2009
Sri Lanka	1	2014

Six nations from ten tournaments is a wider spread than the ODI World Cup has managed, and it reflects how much more volatile the short format is. No side has ever dominated it for long — until now.

India’s three titles, and the gap between them

The shape of India’s record is the most interesting thing on the list.

• 2007 — the inaugural tournament, beating Pakistan by 5 runs in Johannesburg.
• 2024 — seventeen years later, beating South Africa in Barbados.
• 2026 — two years after that, beating New Zealand by 96 runs in Ahmedabad.

Seventeen years between the first and second, then two years between the second and third. India also lost the 2014 final to Sri Lanka, making four final appearances in total — more than any other nation.

The 2026 final set three records at once

India’s win in Ahmedabad was not just a third title. It cleared three things that had never been done in the tournament’s history.

Record	Why it stood so long
First team to successfully defend the title	No previous champion had retained it in nine attempts
First host nation to win	Every earlier edition was won by a visiting side
First team to win it three times	India moved clear of England and West Indies

The host-nation record is the one that had become genuinely strange. Home advantage counts for a great deal in cricket, yet across nine tournaments no host had converted it — including India themselves in 2016, and England in 2009. Our T20 World Cup 2026 recap covers that tournament in full.

India’s 255/5 is also the highest total ever made in a T20 World Cup final, by a distance.

The closest finals

For a format built on big hitting, the finals have frequently been decided by very little.

Year	Margin
2007	India by 5 runs
2010	England by 7 wickets, chasing 148
2021	Australia by 8 wickets, chasing 173
2022	England by 5 wickets, chasing 138
2024	India by 7 runs
2026	India by 96 runs

Two finals decided by single-figure run margins — 2007 and 2024, both involving India — and 2026 the most one-sided of the lot. The 2012 final is the other outlier in the opposite direction: West Indies bowled Sri Lanka out for 101 chasing 138.

Nations that have reached a final and never won

• New Zealand — runners-up in 2021 and 2026, still without a title.
• South Africa — runners-up in 2024.
• Australia waited until 2021, having lost the 2010 final.
• Sri Lanka lost the 2009 and 2012 finals before winning in 2014 — three finals in six years.
• Pakistan have reached three finals, winning in 2009 and losing in 2007 and 2022.

New Zealand’s position is the notable one. Two finals, two defeats, both to sides that were chasing history — Australia’s first title in 2021 and India’s third in 2026.

Why there is a gap between 2016 and 2021

Anyone reading the list closely notices the five-year hole. The tournament ran on a roughly two-year cycle from 2007 to 2016, then did not return until 2021.

The gap was a scheduling matter rather than a lack of interest — the ICC event calendar was reorganised, and the 2020 edition planned for Australia did not go ahead as scheduled. The tournament has since settled back into a roughly two-year rhythm, with 2021, 2022, 2024 and 2026 following in relatively quick succession.

How the tournament has grown

The 2007 competition was a comparatively compact event, staged when several boards were still openly sceptical that T20 internationals belonged on the calendar at all. India’s win there is widely credited with ending that argument — the IPL launched the following year.

By 2026 the tournament carried 20 teams and 55 matches across India and Sri Lanka, with a Super 8 stage between the groups and the knockouts. That expansion mirrors what the ODI World Cup is doing for 2027 in returning to 14 teams, as our 2027 ODI World Cup guide explains.

What the list actually tells you

• Six champions from ten editions — no format in cricket spreads its titles more widely.
• Finals are frequently tight, with two decided by fewer than ten runs.
• Home advantage meant nothing until 2026, which is genuinely hard to explain.
• Defending was impossible for nine tournaments, and then was not.
• The gap between titles can be enormous — India waited seventeen years between their first and second.

Ten data points is a small sample, and T20 is the most variance-heavy format in the sport. A winners list here records what happened on a handful of specific evenings rather than measuring which side was strongest over time.

The short version

Ten T20 World Cups, six different winners. India lead with three (2007, 2024, 2026), England and West Indies have two each, and Australia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka one apiece. India have also appeared in four finals, more than any other nation.

The 2026 edition in India and Sri Lanka broke three long-standing records at once — the first successful title defence, the first host-nation win, and the first third title — with India’s 255/5 the highest total ever made in a final. For more see our T20 World Cup 2026 recap, the IPL winners list and our cricket betting ID page.

Finals appearances by nation

The winners table only tells half the story. Counting every final appearance changes the ranking noticeably.

Nation	Finals	Won	Lost
India	4	3	1
England	3	2	1
Pakistan	3	1	2
Sri Lanka	3	1	2
West Indies	2	2	0
Australia	2	1	1
New Zealand	2	0	2
South Africa	1	0	1

Two things jump out. West Indies are the only side with a perfect record — two finals, two titles, in 2012 and 2016. And New Zealand are the only side to reach multiple finals without winning one, losing in 2021 and 2026.

Pakistan and Sri Lanka each have three finals for a single title, which is the reverse of West Indies’ record and a reminder that reaching the last match is a different achievement from winning it.

The runner-up list

Nation	Runner-up finishes	Years
Pakistan	2	2007, 2022
Sri Lanka	2	2009, 2012
New Zealand	2	2021, 2026
Australia	1	2010
India	1	2014
England	1	2016
South Africa	1	2024

Eight different nations have reached a final across ten tournaments. In a format this short, that spread is the point — a single powerplay can decide a semi-final, and it regularly has.

Where the tournament has been played

Ten editions across nine host arrangements, with three countries hosting more than once.

• India — hosted in 2016 and co-hosted in 2026.
• Sri Lanka — hosted in 2012 and co-hosted in 2026.
• West Indies — hosted in 2010 and co-hosted with the USA in 2024.
• South Africa, England, Bangladesh and Australia have each hosted once.
• UAE and Oman staged the 2021 tournament as neutral venues.
• The USA co-hosting in 2024 was the tournament’s first venture into a non-traditional cricket market.

The 2021 edition is the odd one out. Australia held the hosting rights but the tournament was played in the UAE and Oman, which is why the host column and the rights holder do not match for that year.

How the format has changed across ten editions

The tournament that India won in 2007 and the one they won in 2026 are very different events, and the growth has been steady rather than sudden.

The early editions were compact affairs with a small field, staged at a point when T20 internationals were still a novelty and several boards were openly unconvinced the format belonged on the calendar at all. India winning the first one is widely credited with ending that argument in the one market that mattered most commercially — the IPL launched the following year, and the money in the sport shifted permanently.

By 2026 the field had grown to 20 teams playing 55 matches, with a Super 8 round sitting between the group stage and the knockouts. That intermediate stage is the key structural feature of the modern tournament: rather than going straight from groups into a single-elimination bracket, it gives the stronger sides room to survive one poor afternoon.

• More teams means more mismatches early, which is the acknowledged cost of expansion.
• The Super 8 concentrates the competitive cricket after the groups have thinned the field.
• Associate nations get fixtures against full members they could not otherwise schedule.
• The tournament runs about a month, rather than the compressed fortnight of the early editions.
• Co-hosting has become normal — four of the last five editions shared hosting duties.

Whether 20 teams is the right number remains an open argument. What 2026 demonstrated is that expansion did not prevent a final between two strong sides, which was the main fear attached to it.

This is an editorial records page from the team at Readdy Anna Cricket. It covers results and history only — we do not publish odds, tips, predictions or win probabilities. Records change; confirm against an official source before relying on them. Readdy Anna Cricket is for adults 18 and over. Online gaming laws in India changed under the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 and vary by state — check the rules where you live. Free confidential support is listed on our responsible gaming page.

Nineteen seasons, nineteen finals, and only eight different franchises have ever lifted the trophy. This is the complete IPL winners list from 2008 to 2026 — every champion, every runner-up and every winning captain — along with what the list actually tells you once you read it properly.

The headline as things stand: Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians lead on five titles each, Kolkata Knight Riders have three, and Royal Challengers Bengaluru have just become the third franchise to win back-to-back titles.

IPL winners list: 2008 to 2026

Year	Champion	Winning captain	Runner-up
2008	Rajasthan Royals	Shane Warne	Chennai Super Kings
2009	Deccan Chargers	Adam Gilchrist	Royal Challengers Bangalore
2010	Chennai Super Kings	MS Dhoni	Mumbai Indians
2011	Chennai Super Kings	MS Dhoni	Royal Challengers Bangalore
2012	Kolkata Knight Riders	Gautam Gambhir	Chennai Super Kings
2013	Mumbai Indians	Rohit Sharma	Chennai Super Kings
2014	Kolkata Knight Riders	Gautam Gambhir	Kings XI Punjab
2015	Mumbai Indians	Rohit Sharma	Chennai Super Kings
2016	Sunrisers Hyderabad	David Warner	Royal Challengers Bangalore
2017	Mumbai Indians	Rohit Sharma	Rising Pune Supergiant
2018	Chennai Super Kings	MS Dhoni	Sunrisers Hyderabad
2019	Mumbai Indians	Rohit Sharma	Chennai Super Kings
2020	Mumbai Indians	Rohit Sharma	Delhi Capitals
2021	Chennai Super Kings	MS Dhoni	Kolkata Knight Riders
2022	Gujarat Titans	Hardik Pandya	Rajasthan Royals
2023	Chennai Super Kings	MS Dhoni	Gujarat Titans
2024	Kolkata Knight Riders	Shreyas Iyer	Sunrisers Hyderabad
2025	Royal Challengers Bengaluru	Rajat Patidar	Punjab Kings
2026	Royal Challengers Bengaluru	Rajat Patidar	Gujarat Titans

Titles by franchise

Franchise	Titles	Years
Chennai Super Kings	5	2010, 2011, 2018, 2021, 2023
Mumbai Indians	5	2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2020
Kolkata Knight Riders	3	2012, 2014, 2024
Royal Challengers Bengaluru	2	2025, 2026
Rajasthan Royals	1	2008
Deccan Chargers	1	2009
Sunrisers Hyderabad	1	2016
Gujarat Titans	1	2022

Eight franchises, nineteen titles. Chennai and Mumbai have won ten of the nineteen between them — more than half the competition’s history in two dressing rooms.

The 2026 final

Royal Challengers Bengaluru beat Gujarat Titans by 5 wickets at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on 31 May 2026.

	Detail
Gujarat Titans	155/8 in 20 overs
Royal Challengers Bengaluru	161/5 in 18 overs
Key innings	Virat Kohli 75 not out from 42 balls
Result	RCB won by 5 wickets with 12 balls remaining
Most Valuable Player	Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (Rajasthan Royals)
Orange Cap	Vaibhav Sooryavanshi — 776 runs
Purple Cap	Kagiso Rabada (Gujarat Titans) — 29 wickets

A chase completed with two overs to spare is comfortable by final standards, and 155 was below par at that venue. The result made RCB only the third franchise to successfully defend the title.

The three teams to win back-to-back

Franchise	Consecutive titles
Chennai Super Kings	2010 and 2011
Mumbai Indians	2019 and 2020
Royal Challengers Bengaluru	2025 and 2026

Three in nineteen seasons is a small number, and it says something about how hard the competition is to dominate. Squads are rebuilt at auction, overseas availability shifts season to season, and a salary cap prevents any franchise from simply buying continuity. Retaining a title means surviving all of that twice.

RCB’s is the most striking of the three because of what preceded it. The franchise reached three finals in the competition’s first nine years — 2009, 2011 and 2016 — and lost all three, before waiting until 2025 to win at all. Two titles in two years after that record is a considerable turnaround.

MS Dhoni and the ten finals

The most remarkable individual number in the winners list belongs to one captain.

MS Dhoni has captained a side in ten IPL finals — winning five and losing five. He led Chennai Super Kings to the title in 2010, 2011, 2018, 2021 and 2023, and to runner-up finishes in 2008, 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2019.

Ten finals across sixteen seasons of participation, in a competition that has never had a dominant dynasty, is an outlier. It is also worth noting the shape of it: Chennai’s titles are spread from 2010 to 2023, either side of a two-year suspension, rather than clustered in one strong period.

Captains who have won the IPL

Captain	Titles	Franchise
MS Dhoni	5	Chennai Super Kings
Rohit Sharma	5	Mumbai Indians
Gautam Gambhir	2	Kolkata Knight Riders
Rajat Patidar	2	Royal Challengers Bengaluru
Shane Warne	1	Rajasthan Royals
Adam Gilchrist	1	Deccan Chargers
David Warner	1	Sunrisers Hyderabad
Hardik Pandya	1	Gujarat Titans
Shreyas Iyer	1	Kolkata Knight Riders

Dhoni and Rohit Sharma are level on five apiece, which mirrors their franchises’ totals exactly — neither Chennai nor Mumbai has won a title under anyone else.

Shreyas Iyer’s unusual record

One captain appears in the list in a way nobody else does. Shreyas Iyer has led three different franchises to an IPL final: Delhi Capitals as runners-up in 2020, Kolkata Knight Riders as champions in 2024, and Punjab Kings as runners-up in 2025.

Three finals with three different teams in six seasons is a genuinely rare line in any franchise competition, and it is the kind of detail a plain winners list buries.

Franchises that have never won

• Punjab Kings — runners-up in 2014 as Kings XI Punjab and again in 2025.
• Delhi Capitals — runners-up in 2020; among the original franchises and still without a title.
• Lucknow Super Giants — a newer franchise, yet to reach a final.
• Rising Pune Supergiant — runners-up in 2017, but the franchise no longer exists.
• Kochi Tuskers Kerala, Pune Warriors India and Gujarat Lions — all defunct, none reached a final.

Delhi is the notable one. Present since the first season, in a major market, and still without a trophy after nineteen attempts — the longest wait in the competition.

Two traps in reading this list

Anyone working through IPL history runs into the same two problems, and both produce incorrect claims.

Rebrands are not new teams. Royal Challengers Bangalore and Royal Challengers Bengaluru are the same franchise — the name changed with the city’s official spelling. Kings XI Punjab became Punjab Kings, and Delhi Daredevils became Delhi Capitals. All of that history carries forward.

New franchises are not continuations. Deccan Chargers and Sunrisers Hyderabad are different franchises that happen to share a city — Deccan’s 2009 title does not belong to Sunrisers. The same applies to Gujarat Lions and Gujarat Titans. Our IPL records guide covers this in more detail, because it is the most common source of wrong title counts online.

How the competition has changed

Era	Teams	What stood out
2008–2010	8	New competition; Rajasthan’s underdog win in year one
2011–2013	9–10	Expansion, including franchises that no longer exist
2014–2015	8	Consolidation
2016–2017	8	Two temporary franchises replaced suspended sides
2018–2021	8	Chennai and Rajasthan return; Mumbai’s peak
2022–2026	10	Expansion to ten; Gujarat win as a new franchise

Gujarat Titans winning in 2022 as a first-season franchise is one of the competition’s more remarkable results, and it demonstrated that the auction model genuinely does let a new team compete immediately — which is not true of most franchise leagues elsewhere.

What the list does and does not tell you

A winners list is a record of outcomes, not a measure of strength, and it is worth being clear about the difference.

• Nineteen data points is a small sample. A single tournament win depends heavily on two or three knockout matches.
• T20 is the most variance-heavy format, so the best league-stage side frequently does not win.
• Finishing top two matters — the playoff structure gives those sides a second chance.
• Squads change wholesale at mega auctions, so a franchise’s history says little about its current team.
• Runner-up finishes are not failures. Chennai have lost five finals and are still joint-most successful.

That last point is the one worth sitting with. The same franchise leads the title count and the runner-up count, which is a good reminder that reaching finals repeatedly is the achievement, and winning them is substantially a matter of what happens on one evening.

Season records and full scorecards for every edition listed above are published on the official IPL site, which remains the reference for anything contested – final margins, player-of-the-match awards and the season statistics that get misquoted most often.

The short version

Nineteen IPL seasons from 2008 to 2026 have produced eight different champions. Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians lead with five titles each, Kolkata Knight Riders have three, and Royal Challengers Bengaluru have two after winning in 2025 and 2026.

RCB’s 2026 win — beating Gujarat Titans by 5 wickets at Ahmedabad, with Virat Kohli unbeaten on 75 — made them the third franchise to defend the title, after Chennai in 2010-11 and Mumbai in 2019-20. MS Dhoni has captained ten finals, winning five. Delhi Capitals remain the longest-serving franchise never to win. For more see our IPL teams and venues guide, the IPL records guide, the IPL tickets guide and our IPL page.

The runner-up list

Losing finalists tell you as much about a franchise as winning ones, and the pattern here is striking.

Franchise	Runner-up finishes	Years
Chennai Super Kings	5	2008, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2019
Royal Challengers Bengaluru	3	2009, 2011, 2016
Sunrisers Hyderabad	2	2018, 2024
Gujarat Titans	2	2023, 2026
Punjab Kings	2	2014, 2025
Mumbai Indians	1	2010
Rising Pune Supergiant	1	2017
Delhi Capitals	1	2020
Kolkata Knight Riders	1	2021
Rajasthan Royals	1	2022

Add the two tables together and Chennai Super Kings have played in ten of the nineteen finals — five won, five lost. No other franchise is close. Mumbai have reached six, Royal Challengers five, and every other side four or fewer.

That is the real measure of Chennai’s record. Winning five titles is impressive; being in the final more than half the time across nineteen seasons, through a mega-auction cycle and a two-year suspension, is the harder thing to do.

Indian and overseas winning captains

Nineteen titles have been won by nine different captains, and the split has shifted decisively over time.

	Captains	Titles	When
Overseas	Shane Warne, Adam Gilchrist, David Warner	3	2008, 2009, 2016
Indian	Dhoni, Rohit, Gambhir, Hardik, Shreyas Iyer, Patidar	16	2010 onwards

Overseas captains won two of the first two seasons and only one since. That is not a rule about who leads better — it reflects how the competition changed. Early IPL squads leaned on marquee international names for leadership; the modern competition is built around a core of Indian players who must make up the bulk of every XI, and captaincy has followed.

How a team actually wins the IPL

The route to a title is not simply finishing top, and the playoff structure is worth understanding because it shapes every result in the list above.

1. League stage — each team plays 14 matches, and the top four advance.
2. Qualifier 1 — first plays second. The winner goes straight to the final.
3. Eliminator — third plays fourth. The loser is out.
4. Qualifier 2 — the Qualifier 1 loser plays the Eliminator winner.
5. Final — the two survivors meet.

The advantage this hands the top two is substantial: they get a second chance after losing a knockout match, and third and fourth do not. A side finishing second can lose Qualifier 1 and still win the trophy. A side finishing fourth must win three consecutive knockouts.

This is why net run rate matters so much across a season, and why the closing weeks of the league stage are frequently more consequential than the opening weeks of the playoffs.

Why the same names keep appearing

Eight champions in nineteen seasons, with two franchises accounting for ten of them, invites an obvious question: what makes Chennai and Mumbai different in a competition explicitly designed to prevent dynasties?

• Retention discipline — both have consistently kept a settled core through auction cycles rather than rebuilding wholesale.
• Captaincy continuity — neither has won a title under anyone other than Dhoni or Rohit respectively.
• Domestic recruitment — with overseas players capped in the XI, depth in Indian players is the real constraint, and both have drafted well.
• Low churn in support staff, which is harder to measure but frequently cited.
• Tolerance for a bad season — both have finished near the bottom and rebuilt without dismantling the core.

None of that guarantees anything, and both franchises have had poor seasons. But across nineteen years the pattern is consistent enough to be more than coincidence.

Two related records worth reading alongside this: the most expensive player in IPL history — including the salary-cap rule that means the headline figure is not what the player receives — and the T20 World Cup winners list for India’s three titles in that format.

This is an editorial records page from the team at Readdy Anna Cricket. It covers results and history only — we do not publish odds, tips, predictions or win probabilities. Readdy Anna Cricket is for adults 18 and over. Online gaming laws in India changed under the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 and vary by state — check the rules where you live. Free confidential support is listed on our responsible gaming page.

The Women’s T20 Asia Cup 2026 runs from 28 August to 13 September 2026 at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium, with all fifteen matches played under lights. Eight teams, two groups, and a tournament that lands squarely in the Indian evening — every match starts at 8:00 PM IST.

India are in Group A alongside Pakistan, Hong Kong and Thailand, and go into the tournament chasing an eighth Asia Cup title. Sri Lanka arrive as defending champions. This page carries the full fixture list, the format, the group breakdown and everything else confirmed — with no odds, tips or predictions, which is a line we hold across the site.

India’s group stage: three wins from three

Status as of 7 September 2026. This section is updated as results come in.

Date	Match	Result
30 August	India v Thailand	India won by 94 runs (IND 159/9; THA 65)
3 September	India v Hong Kong	India won by 137 runs (IND 193/5; HKG 56)
5 September	India v Pakistan	India won by 7 wickets (PAK 55 all out; IND 57/3 in 8.4 overs)

The India–Pakistan game was the most one-sided meeting between the two in this competition’s history. Pakistan were bowled out for 55, and India knocked off the target inside nine overs with 68 balls to spare.

India top Group A and go into the first semi-final on 10 September. Sri Lanka, unbeaten at the top of Group B after beating Bangladesh by four wickets, take the second semi-final on 11 September. The final is on 13 September, all matches at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium with an 8:00 PM IST start.

The essentials

	Detail
Tournament	Women’s T20 Asia Cup 2026
Dates	28 August – 13 September 2026
Venue	Dubai International Cricket Stadium — all matches
Teams	8
Matches	15 — 12 group, 2 semi-finals, 1 final
Format	Two groups of four, top two from each to the semi-finals
All start times	8:00 PM IST (night matches)
Defending champions	Sri Lanka
Final	Sunday 13 September 2026

A single-venue tournament is unusual and has a practical upside: no travel between matches, consistent conditions, and a schedule that is easy to follow because every fixture starts at the same time on the same ground.

The groups

Group A	Group B
India	Sri Lanka (holders)
Pakistan	Bangladesh
Hong Kong	Indonesia
Thailand	United Arab Emirates (hosts)

The draw has put India and Pakistan in the same group, which guarantees the fixture happens rather than leaving it to the knockout stage. Group B contains the defending champions and the hosts, and is arguably the more open of the two.

Full match schedule

Every match at Dubai International Cricket Stadium, every start at 8:00 PM IST.

#	Date	Match	Group
1	Fri 28 Aug	Hong Kong v Thailand	A
2	Sat 29 Aug	UAE v Sri Lanka	B
3	Sun 30 Aug	India v Thailand	A
4	Mon 31 Aug	Bangladesh v Indonesia	B
5	Tue 1 Sep	Pakistan v Thailand	A
6	Wed 2 Sep	Indonesia v Sri Lanka	B
7	Thu 3 Sep	Hong Kong v India	A
8	Fri 4 Sep	UAE v Indonesia	B
9	Sat 5 Sep	India v Pakistan	A
10	Sun 6 Sep	Bangladesh v Sri Lanka	B
11	Mon 7 Sep	Hong Kong v Pakistan	A
12	Tue 8 Sep	UAE v Bangladesh	B
SF1	Thu 10 Sep	A1 v B2	Semi-final
SF2	Fri 11 Sep	B1 v A2	Semi-final
F	Sun 13 Sep	Final	—

Note the rest day on Wednesday 9 September between the last group match and the first semi-final, and a second between the semi-finals and the final on the Saturday. The tournament is compact but not relentless.

India’s three group matches

Opponent	Date	Start (IST)
Thailand	Sunday 30 August 2026	8:00 PM
Hong Kong	Thursday 3 September 2026	8:00 PM
Pakistan	Saturday 5 September 2026	8:00 PM

India open against Thailand, then face Hong Kong, and finish the group stage against Pakistan. Ending on the biggest fixture is a scheduling choice rather than an accident — it guarantees the marquee match falls late in the group stage when qualification scenarios may already be live.

Two of the three fall on a weekend, which for an Indian audience is about as good as scheduling gets.

India v Pakistan on 5 September

This is the fixture the tournament is built around, and it is worth being straightforward about why.

India and Pakistan do not play bilateral cricket in any format. The men’s teams meet only at ICC events and the Asia Cup, and the same applies on the women’s side. That scarcity is what turns a group-stage match into the most watched fixture of the tournament, and it is the same dynamic that drives the men’s competition — our Asia Cup guide covers that in detail.

It falls on a Saturday evening at 8:00 PM IST, which is the single most accessible slot in the entire schedule.

How the format works

1. Group stage — eight teams in two groups of four, each playing the other three in its group once. Twelve matches in total.
2. Semi-finals — the top two from each group advance. The first semi-final pairs A1 against B2 on 10 September; the second pairs B1 against A2 on 11 September.
3. Final — the two semi-final winners meet on Sunday 13 September.

It is a clean structure with one consequence worth noting: each team plays only three group matches. A single defeat carries far more weight than it would in a longer round-robin, and net run rate is likely to matter in at least one group.

Sri Lanka arrive as defending champions

Sri Lanka hold the title, which for most of this tournament’s history would have been a surprising sentence to write.

India have dominated the Women’s Asia Cup across its history and go into 2026 pursuing an eighth title. Sri Lanka breaking that run made the previous edition the most significant result in the competition’s recent history, and it is why the holders sitting in Group B rather than alongside India shapes the bracket the way it does — on current seeding, India and Sri Lanka could only meet in the final.

Dubai as a venue

The Dubai International Cricket Stadium is a well-established neutral venue and one of the most-used grounds in international cricket despite the UAE playing relatively little of it themselves.

• All matches are under lights, which is standard for the venue in this part of the year.
• Late-August and September heat is significant during the day, which is precisely why the schedule is entirely nocturnal.
• The surface has historically favoured spin more than most neutral venues, and can slow as a match progresses.
• Dew is a genuine factor in evening matches here and can affect the second innings.
• Large boundaries by modern standards, which tends to reward running between the wickets over pure power.
• No travel — a single-venue tournament removes a variable that often disrupts short competitions.

The dew point matters more than it might sound. In a 15-match tournament played entirely at night on one ground, the toss carries a consistent influence across the whole competition rather than varying venue to venue.

Why the UAE hosts so much Asian cricket

The UAE has become the default neutral ground for tournaments in this region, and the reasons are practical rather than sporting.

It offers international-standard facilities, established broadcast infrastructure, a large South Asian resident population that fills grounds, and a location that sidesteps the political complications that arise when a tournament rotates to certain hosts. The men’s Asia Cup final in 2025 was played at this same stadium for much the same reasons.

The trade-off is that home advantage effectively disappears — the UAE are in the tournament as hosts, but the conditions are neutral for practical purposes because every side plays there regularly.

The associate sides

Half the field is made up of teams outside the established Test-playing group, and their presence is a large part of what the tournament is for.

Team	Group	Notes
Thailand	A	The most established of the associates in women’s T20; a regular qualifier
Hong Kong	A	Returning to the main tournament
Indonesia	B	Among the newer sides at this level
UAE	B	Hosts, and improving steadily on home soil

Thailand in particular have a genuine record at this level and have caused difficulties for higher-ranked sides before. Treating any of these matches as a formality would be a mistake — though as always, we are describing the field rather than forecasting results.

Watching it from India

This is the most convenient international tournament of the year for an Indian audience, and the arithmetic is simple.

	Detail
UAE time zone	UTC+4
India	UTC+5:30
Difference	IST is 1 hour 30 minutes ahead
Local start	6:30 PM in Dubai
IST start	8:00 PM
Typical finish	Around 11:30 PM IST

An 8:00 PM start finishing around 11:30 PM is a straightforward weeknight watch — no early mornings, no overnight sessions, and every match at the same time so there is nothing to look up. Compare that with a tournament in the Caribbean or Australia and the difference is stark.

Where it sits in the women’s calendar

The Asia Cup is one part of a busy stretch for India’s women.

• 28 Aug – 13 Sep 2026 — Women’s T20 Asia Cup, Dubai.
• October 2026 — Zimbabwe tour India for ODIs and T20Is.
• December 2026 — India tour South Africa for a Test plus white-ball matches.
• Feb 2026 – Jan 2029 — the ICC Women’s Championship cycle runs throughout.
• Sep 2026 — the Women’s Caribbean Premier League runs concurrently in the West Indies.

The December tour of South Africa is the notable one, because it includes a Test match — still a rarity in women’s cricket, and a format India played at Lord’s earlier this year. Our India home season guide and India cricket schedule guide cover how these windows interlock with the men’s calendar.

What to follow, without predicting anything

1. Whether net run rate decides a semi-final place. With only three group matches each, it is a live possibility.
2. How the Dubai surface behaves across fifteen matches on the same square — it may slow noticeably by the knockouts.
3. The toss and dew, which at this venue and this time of year is a consistent factor rather than an occasional one.
4. Whether an associate side upsets the seeding, particularly Thailand in Group A.
5. Whether Sri Lanka can defend the title from the opposite half of the draw.
6. The India v Pakistan group match on 5 September, which will be the most watched fixture regardless of what is riding on it.

The short version

The Women’s T20 Asia Cup 2026 runs 28 August to 13 September at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium — eight teams, fifteen matches, all under lights and all starting at 8:00 PM IST. India are in Group A with Pakistan, Hong Kong and Thailand; Sri Lanka defend the title from Group B alongside Bangladesh, Indonesia and hosts UAE.

India play Thailand on 30 August, Hong Kong on 3 September and Pakistan on 5 September, chasing an eighth Asia Cup title. The top two from each group reach the semi-finals on 10 and 11 September, with the final on Sunday 13 September. With only three group matches per side, net run rate could well decide a qualification place. For more of our cricket coverage see the cricket betting ID page, the Asia Cup guide and cricket markets explained.

A short history of the Women’s Asia Cup

The Women’s Asia Cup has been running since the mid-2000s and for most of that time has been one of the most one-sided tournaments in international sport.

India won the early editions almost without interruption, in both ODI and T20 formats, at a point when the gap between the region’s leading side and the rest was very wide. The tournament has since switched to a T20 format and the gap has narrowed considerably — Bangladesh’s win in 2018 was the first genuine break in India’s dominance, and Sri Lanka’s more recent triumph confirmed that the competition now has more than one plausible winner.

That trajectory is the tournament’s real story. A competition that existed largely to give the region’s other sides regular cricket against a stronger opponent has turned into one where the holders are not India.

Why this tournament matters beyond the trophy

For most of the eight teams, the Asia Cup is one of very few opportunities to play competitive cricket against higher-ranked opposition.

• Associate sides get fixtures they cannot otherwise schedule. Thailand, Hong Kong, Indonesia and the UAE play limited cricket against full members outside events like this.
• It is a rankings opportunity, and rankings feed into qualification pathways for global events.
• Visibility drives investment. Broadcast exposure for a national side has downstream effects on funding and participation.
• It is a scouting window — performances here are watched by franchise leagues, including the WPL.
• For India it is preparation as much as a title defence, in a calendar with few competitive T20 fixtures.

The scouting point is the one that has changed most in recent years. The growth of women’s franchise cricket has given players from smaller cricketing nations a route that did not previously exist, and a strong tournament in Dubai is now genuinely career-altering in a way it was not a decade ago.

Women’s cricket in India right now

The tournament arrives during a strong period for Indian women’s cricket, and some context helps explain the interest around it.

India’s women recorded a landmark Test win at Lord’s in July 2026, which the BCCI marked publicly — Test cricket remains rare in the women’s game, and a win at that venue carries obvious weight. India also have a Test scheduled against South Africa in December 2026, meaning two red-ball matches inside six months for a side that historically played one every few years.

Domestically, the Women’s Premier League has changed the professional landscape substantially since its launch, both in player earnings and in the depth of the domestic pool selectors can draw on. Our WPL guide covers that competition.

How the T20 format plays in Dubai

Some general characteristics of the venue and format, which apply to every side equally.

Factor	Effect at this venue
Boundary size	Large by modern standards; rewards running and placement
Surface	Historically assists spin more than most neutral grounds
Second innings	Dew can make the ball harder to grip
Pace of pitch	Tends to slow as a tournament progresses on the same square
Night conditions	Cooler and generally better for batting than daytime heat

A single-venue tournament amplifies all of this. Fifteen matches on the same square over seventeen days means the surface will not be the same in the final as it was on the opening night, and sides reaching the knockouts will be playing a slightly different game from the one they started.

Following the tournament properly

1. All matches are 8:00 PM IST — there is nothing to look up beyond the date.
2. India play 30 August, 3 September and 5 September, two of the three on a weekend.
3. Watch net run rate from the second round of group matches onward, with only three games each.
4. Rest days fall on 9 September and on the Saturday before the final.
5. Semi-final pairings are fixed — A1 v B2 first, B1 v A2 second.
6. Confirm broadcast arrangements against the official listing rather than assuming.

For club cricket in the same season, WBBL 2026-27 runs from 29 October to 5 December with timings that suit Indian viewers.

This is an editorial preview from the team at Readdy Anna Cricket. It covers schedules, groups, venues and history only — we do not publish odds, tips, predictions or win probabilities. Schedules change; confirm against the Asian Cricket Council or the official series page before relying on them. Readdy Anna Cricket is for adults 18 and over. Online gaming laws in India changed under the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 and vary by state — check the rules where you live. Free confidential support is listed on our responsible gaming page.

The BCCI confirmed India’s home international season for 2026-27 in a media advisory on 26 March 2026, and it is a substantial one: 22 international matches across 17 cities, with four visiting teams — West Indies, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and Australia.

It opens with the West Indies on 27 September 2026 and closes with the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, a five-Test series against Australia running from 21 January to 3 March 2027. This page carries the complete fixture list — every date, venue and start time as published by the BCCI — along with what is actually at stake across the season.

The season at a glance

	Detail
Total international matches	22
Cities	17
Visiting teams	West Indies, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Australia
Season opens	27 September 2026, Trivandrum
Season closes	3 March 2027, Ahmedabad
Formats	5 Tests, 9 ODIs, 8 T20Is
Marquee series	Border-Gavaskar Trophy — 5 Tests v Australia

One point worth noting immediately: there are no home Tests until January. The first four months are entirely white-ball cricket, and then the season ends with five consecutive Tests. That is an unusual shape, and it concentrates all of India’s home red-ball cricket into a six-week block.

West Indies tour of India — September and October 2026

Three ODIs followed by five T20Is, spread across eight cities. This is the season opener.

#	Date	Match	Venue	Start (IST)
1	Sun 27 Sep 2026	1st ODI	Trivandrum	2:00 PM
2	Wed 30 Sep 2026	2nd ODI	Guwahati	2:00 PM
3	Sat 3 Oct 2026	3rd ODI	New Chandigarh	2:00 PM
4	Tue 6 Oct 2026	1st T20I	Lucknow	7:00 PM
5	Fri 9 Oct 2026	2nd T20I	Ranchi	7:00 PM
6	Sun 11 Oct 2026	3rd T20I	Indore	7:00 PM
7	Wed 14 Oct 2026	4th T20I	Hyderabad	7:00 PM
8	Sat 17 Oct 2026	5th T20I	Bengaluru	7:00 PM

A five-match T20I series is longer than the modern norm and points to squad-building rather than a marquee contest. Note also that the ODIs are day fixtures at 2:00 PM while the T20Is are evening games at 7:00 PM — several websites list the ODI starts incorrectly, so the BCCI advisory is the figure to trust.

Sri Lanka tour of India — December 2026

A white-ball series of three ODIs and three T20Is, filling the December window.

#	Date	Match	Venue	Start (IST)
1	Sun 13 Dec 2026	1st ODI	Delhi	2:00 PM
2	Wed 16 Dec 2026	2nd ODI	Bengaluru	2:00 PM
3	Sat 19 Dec 2026	3rd ODI	Ahmedabad	2:00 PM
4	Tue 22 Dec 2026	1st T20I	Rajkot	7:00 PM
5	Thu 24 Dec 2026	2nd T20I	Cuttack	7:00 PM
6	Sun 27 Dec 2026	3rd T20I	Pune	7:00 PM

India also tour Sri Lanka for two Tests in August 2026, so the two sides meet twice inside five months in different formats and different countries — our India v Sri Lanka Test preview covers the away leg.

Zimbabwe tour of India — January 2027

A short three-match ODI series to open the new year.

#	Date	Match	Venue	Start (IST)
1	Sun 3 Jan 2027	1st ODI	Kolkata	2:00 PM
2	Wed 6 Jan 2027	2nd ODI	Hyderabad	2:00 PM
3	Sat 9 Jan 2027	3rd ODI	Mumbai	2:00 PM

Three ODIs at Eden Gardens, Hyderabad and the Wankhede is a strong set of venues for a short series, and the timing places it directly before the Australia Tests.

Border-Gavaskar Trophy — January to March 2027

The centrepiece. Five Tests against Australia, running from 21 January to 3 March 2027 across five cities.

Test	From	To	Venue	Start (IST)
1st	Thu 21 Jan 2027	Mon 25 Jan 2027	Nagpur	9:30 AM
2nd	Fri 29 Jan 2027	Tue 2 Feb 2027	Chennai	9:30 AM
3rd	Thu 11 Feb 2027	Mon 15 Feb 2027	Guwahati	9:00 AM
4th	Fri 19 Feb 2027	Tue 23 Feb 2027	Ranchi	9:30 AM
5th	Sat 27 Feb 2027	Wed 3 Mar 2027	Ahmedabad	9:30 AM

Two details stand out. The third Test at Guwahati starts at 9:00 AM rather than 9:30 — the only fixture in the season with a different start time, reflecting how much earlier the light fades in the northeast. And Guwahati hosting a Border-Gavaskar Test at all is a significant step for a venue that has only recently entered the Test roster.

The gap between the second and third Tests is also notable: Chennai finishes on 2 February and Guwahati does not begin until 11 February, a nine-day break in the middle of a five-match series.

Why the Border-Gavaskar Trophy carries extra weight this time

Beyond the rivalry, there is a table involved. The ICC World Test Championship 2025-27 cycle closes in January 2027, and standings are ranked by percentage of available points won.

Pos	Team	M	W	L	D	PCT
1	Australia	8	7	1	0	87.50
2	South Africa	4	3	1	0	75.00
3	New Zealand	6	4	1	1	72.22
4	Bangladesh	4	2	1	1	58.33
5	India	9	4	4	1	48.15

India sit fifth on 48.15% after nine matches, with a home defeat to South Africa in November 2025 the result that cost most. Australia lead on 87.50%. Five home Tests against the side at the top of the table is the largest single block of points still available to India in this cycle.

We are not offering a view on how that resolves — no page on this site does. The point is structural: the season’s final six weeks carry disproportionate weight in a championship that is nearly over.

All 17 host cities

Seventeen cities is a deliberately wide spread, and several are not regular international venues.

Region	Cities
North	Delhi, New Chandigarh, Lucknow
West	Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Pune, Rajkot, Indore, Nagpur
South	Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Trivandrum
East & Northeast	Kolkata, Cuttack, Ranchi, Guwahati

New Chandigarh and Guwahati are the two worth watching. New Chandigarh’s Maharaja Yadavindra Singh Stadium has recently taken over from Mohali as Punjab’s principal venue, and Guwahati hosts both an ODI in September and a Border-Gavaskar Test in February — a considerable elevation for a ground that was not long ago outside the Test rotation.

Trivandrum and Cuttack are also relatively infrequent hosts, which makes this season a genuine spread rather than the usual rotation of six or seven major venues. Our venue guide covers the characteristics of India’s better-known grounds.

Understanding the start times

Three patterns run through the whole season, and knowing them saves checking each fixture individually.

Format	Start (IST)	Why
Test	9:30 AM	Standard, maximising available daylight
Test at Guwahati	9:00 AM	Light fades earlier in the northeast
ODI	2:00 PM	Day-night; second innings under lights
T20I	7:00 PM	Evening fixture, prime-time

The 2:00 PM ODI start means the second innings is played under lights, which introduces dew as a factor at several venues — particularly in the north during the cooler months. It is one of the genuine home-conditions variables in Indian white-ball cricket, and it affects how captains approach the toss.

How the home season fits India’s wider calendar

The home fixtures are only part of the year. India also tour, and those windows sit between the home blocks.

When	What	Where
15–27 Aug 2026	2 Tests v Sri Lanka	Away — Galle, Colombo
27 Sep – 17 Oct 2026	3 ODIs, 5 T20Is v West Indies	Home
Oct–Dec 2026	T20Is, ODIs and Tests v New Zealand	Away
13–27 Dec 2026	3 ODIs, 3 T20Is v Sri Lanka	Home
3–9 Jan 2027	3 ODIs v Zimbabwe	Home
21 Jan – 3 Mar 2027	5 Tests v Australia	Home

The New Zealand tour is the one that complicates things. It overlaps the home window, running from October into December, which means squad rotation across formats is likely to be heavy. Our India cricket schedule guide explains how these windows are constructed and why the monsoon dictates so much of the shape.

Domestic cricket running alongside

Underneath the internationals, the domestic season runs continuously and feeds the national side.

• Duleep Trophy — August to September 2026.
• Irani Cup — October 2026.
• Ranji Trophy — October 2026 to March 2027, the first-class championship.
• Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy — November to December 2026, the domestic T20 competition.
• Vijay Hazare Trophy — December 2026 to January 2027, the 50-over competition.
• Women’s domestic and India A fixtures run through the same window.

The Ranji Trophy in particular matters this season. With five home Tests in January and February, domestic red-ball form through October to December is the most visible route into a Test squad — which is precisely how Saransh Jain earned a maiden call-up for the Sri Lanka tour.

Tickets and attending

A season spread across 17 cities means a lot of people will be within reach of an international fixture, so a few practical notes.

1. Tickets are sold per venue, generally through the host state association’s appointed partner — there is no single national ticket shop.
2. Sales usually open a few weeks before each match, not season-wide.
3. Test tickets are far easier to obtain than T20I tickets, and often cheaper.
4. Weekend T20Is clear fastest — the Bengaluru and Hyderabad fixtures are the ones to plan ahead for.
5. Buy only through the official channel for that venue, and never pay an individual directly.
6. Check the venue’s own rules on ID, bag restrictions and re-entry, which vary by ground.

The scam patterns around sold-out cricket are consistent and worth knowing before you need to; our ticket-buying guide sets them out in full.

Weather across the season

Seven months spanning three seasons produces genuinely different playing conditions from start to finish.

• Late September — the monsoon is retreating; Trivandrum and Guwahati can still see rain.
• October — generally the most reliable weather of the season across most of the country.
• December — cool in the north, with dew a significant second-innings factor at Delhi.
• January — fog is a genuine risk in the north; Kolkata and Nagpur can be affected.
• February to March — warming rapidly; Ahmedabad in early March can be hot.
• Guwahati in February — the early start reflects light rather than heat.

Women’s cricket in the same window

The men’s home season is not the whole picture. India’s women have their own fixtures across the period, including a tour of South Africa in December 2026 featuring a Test alongside white-ball matches, and a home series against Zimbabwe in October 2026.

Before either, the Women’s T20 Asia Cup runs in Dubai from 28 August to 13 September 2026, with India in Group A alongside Pakistan, Hong Kong and Thailand. It is the most immediate India fixture of any kind after the Sri Lanka Tests.

The short version

India’s home international season 2026-27 runs from 27 September 2026 to 3 March 2027: 22 matches, 17 cities, four visiting teams. West Indies open it with three ODIs and five T20Is, Sri Lanka visit in December for six white-ball matches, Zimbabwe play three ODIs in early January, and Australia close the season with the five-Test Border-Gavaskar Trophy from 21 January to 3 March.

Start times are consistent by format — 9:30 AM for Tests, 2:00 PM for ODIs, 7:00 PM for T20Is — with the Guwahati Test the single exception at 9:00 AM. The season carries unusual weight because the World Test Championship cycle closes in January 2027 with India fifth on 48.15%, and five home Tests against table-topping Australia represent the bulk of the points still available. For more see our cricket betting ID page, the India cricket schedule guide and the 2027 ODI World Cup guide.

What a five-Test home series demands

Five Tests in six weeks is among the most demanding assignments in cricket, and the Border-Gavaskar schedule compresses it further with two blocks of back-to-back matches.

Gap	Between	Days off
1st to 2nd Test	Nagpur to Chennai	3
2nd to 3rd Test	Chennai to Guwahati	8
3rd to 4th Test	Guwahati to Ranchi	3
4th to 5th Test	Ranchi to Ahmedabad	3

Three of the four gaps are three days — effectively a travel day and two of recovery. That is a heavy rotation for fast bowlers in particular, and it is the main reason squads for home Test series now carry more seam-bowling depth than the playing eleven would suggest.

The nine-day gap in the middle is the exception, and it falls between the two most geographically distant venues on the list. Chennai to Guwahati is close to the full diagonal of the country.

The West Indies series in context

Eight white-ball matches against West Indies is a substantial opening block, and the shape of it says something about its purpose.

Five T20Is is longer than the modern standard, which is usually three. Longer T20I series are generally about looking at players rather than settling a rivalry, and with the tournament calendar what it is, a five-match series in October gives selectors a lot of cricket to work with before the season’s serious business begins in January.

The venues reinforce that reading. Lucknow, Ranchi, Indore, Hyderabad and Bengaluru is a spread of second-tier and first-tier grounds rather than a concentration of marquee venues — the pattern of a developmental series rather than a showpiece one.

New Chandigarh and Guwahati: two venues on the rise

Most of the seventeen host cities are familiar. Two are worth watching specifically.

New Chandigarh hosts the third ODI against West Indies on 3 October. The Maharaja Yadavindra Singh Stadium has recently become Punjab’s principal venue, taking over from the long-established Mohali ground — it is also now the IPL home of Punjab Kings, as our venue guide notes.

Guwahati is the more striking case. It hosts an ODI against West Indies on 30 September and then a Border-Gavaskar Test in February — a substantial elevation for a ground that only recently entered the Test rotation. Hosting Australia in a five-match series is about as strong a signal of confidence in a venue as the BCCI can give.

Dew, fog and the December-to-February window

Weather does not merely interrupt cricket in this window — it shapes how matches are played.

• Dew in December makes the ball difficult to grip in the second innings, which affects spinners most and can make chasing meaningfully easier at northern venues.
• The 2:00 PM ODI start puts the second innings squarely in the dew window at Delhi in mid-December.
• Fog in January is a genuine risk in the north and east — Kolkata’s ODI on 3 January and Nagpur’s Test from 21 January both sit in that period.
• Ahmedabad in early March can be hot enough to be a physical factor across five days.
• Guwahati’s 9:00 AM start in February exists precisely because usable light runs out earlier there.

For anyone planning to attend, those are practical considerations rather than trivia: a December evening in Delhi and a March afternoon in Ahmedabad are very different experiences of watching cricket.

Between the home blocks India also tour New Zealand. Our New Zealand tour preview covers all twelve matches, and the Sri Lanka December series preview and Border-Gavaskar Trophy preview cover the home fixtures that follow.

The season’s shortest series is also its most unusual: the Zimbabwe tour of India 2027 brings three ODIs to Kolkata, Hyderabad and Mumbai in the first week of January, against a side that will co-host the World Cup nine months later.

Behind the international fixtures sits the domestic game — the Duleep Trophy 2026-27 from 23 August and the Ranji Trophy 2026-27 from 11 October, which is where most of these players were developed.

This is an editorial guide from the team at Readdy Anna Cricket, compiled from the BCCI’s official fixture announcement. It covers schedules and venues only — we do not publish odds, tips, predictions or win probabilities. Fixtures and venues can change; confirm against BCCI before booking travel or tickets. Readdy Anna Cricket is for adults 18 and over. Online gaming laws in India changed under the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 and vary by state — check the rules where you live. Free confidential support is listed on our responsible gaming page.