Fourth Season

On 21 March 2010, it was announced in Chennai that two new teams from Pune and Kochi will be added to the IPL for the fourth season. However, the bid around the Kochi franchisee turned controversial resulting in the resignation of minister, Shashi Tharoor from the Central Government and investigations by various departments of the Government of India into the financial dealings of IPL and the other existing franchisees. Later, Lalit Modi was also removed from IPL chairmanship by BCCI. On 5 December 2010, it was confirmed that Kochi will take part in the fourth season of IPL.

The addition of teams representing Pune and Kochi was to have increased the number of franchises from 8 to 10. The BCCI originally considered extending the tournament format used in previous season to ten teams, which would increase the number of matches from 60 to 94. Instead, the round-robin stage of the tournament was to have been replaced by a group stage with two groups of five, limiting the number of matches to 74.But this format was replaced by another one in which each team would play 5 other teams in a two-way round robin format and there would be 2 teams against whom they would play only at home and remaining 2 teams against which they would play only away matches.Thus each team plays 14 matches.Top four teams would qualify for the semi-finals.

In October 2010, the Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab had their franchises terminated for breaching ownership rules. The new Kochi franchise was also issued a warning to resolve all their ownership disputes.Two months later both teams were finally allowed to take part in the 2011 edition after a court ruling.

Chennai Super Kings won their second consecutive IPL title after defeating Royal Challengers Bangalore by 58 runs in the fourth season of IPL.[15] CSK had beaten RCB in the playoffs too while RCB defeated Mumbai Indians to reach the final. This is the first time a franchise has won two IPL titles, had four consecutive semi-final visits, come to the finals three times, and successfully defended their title. The top four teams namely CSK, RCB, KKR and MI have also qualified for the Champions League. MUMBAI INDIANS are the current Champions League Twenty20 champions.