On 24 May 2015, Mumbai Indians defeated Chennai Super Kings by 41 runs in the final at Eden Gardens, Kolkata, to win the IPL title for the second time. Mumbai captain Rohit Sharma was awarded player of the match in the final for his knock of 50 from 26 balls. Andre Russell of the Kolkata Knight Riders was named Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the season.
This was the last time that Sony Television Network broadcast the tournament before Star Sports Network took the broadcasting rights from the 8th season and are currently bearing the broadcasting rights for the tournament.
The eight franchises retained a total of 123 players for the 2015 IPL season before moving into the auction. The released players were provided an option to register themselves for auction. Six players were traded across teams before the auction took place. At the 2015 IPL auction held on 16 February at Bangalore, Yuvraj Singh was sold to Delhi Daredevils for ₹16 crore, a record bid in IPL auction history. A total of 67 players were sold out in the auction and the franchises spent a total of ₹87.60 crore to buy the players.[2]
Officials
The 2015 IPL season saw 26 match officials, 13 Indian umpires and four match referees officiating. 26 match officials (umpires and referees) participated in a two-day workshop, organised by the BCCI, in preparation for the 2015 IPL season. The workshop was held at the Cricket Centre, Mumbai, on 4 and 5 April 2015, from 9am to 5pm.[3]
Venues
12 venues were selected to host the league stage matches.[4]Mumbai, Pune and Ranchi hosted Qualifier 1, Eliminator and Qualifier 2 respectively and Kolkata hosted the Final.[5]
BCCI started a new initiative IPL Fanpark to spread the reach of IPL across the country. As a part of the initiative, IPL was made available in the stadiums across 15 cities, apart from the 12 venues hosting the matches, on a large screen. The access to these stadiums was free and based on first-come first-served basis.[9]
Opening ceremony
The opening ceremony was held at the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata, on 7 April 2015. The captains of all eight teams signed the "MCC Spirit of Cricket" pledge. The ceremony featured live performances of Hrithik Roshan, Anushka Sharma, Farhan Akhtar, Shahid Kapoor among others. The ceremony began after a one and a half hours delay due to rain.[10]
Sunrisers Hyderabad won the toss and elected to bat.
Mumbai Indians qualified for the playoffs and advanced to Qualifier 1, and Kolkata Knight Riders and Sunrisers Hyderabad were eliminated as a result of this match.