# ILT20 Winners: Every Champion from 2023 to 2026

Source: https://cricketin.org/blog/ilt20-winners

[By Anjali Deshmukh](/authors/cricket-analyst), Cricket Analyst. [Reviewed by Karthik Iyengar](/authors/data-editor), Data Editor. Updated 2 Sep 2026. Editorial policy: https://cricketin.org/editorial-policy

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Every ILT20 champion from 2023 to 2026 with the runner-up, the margin and the venue. Four seasons, four different winners, read from the record of each final.

The International League T20 has played four seasons in the United Arab Emirates, from 2022/23 to 2025/26. Each one was won by a different club.

- Gulf Giants won in 2022/23, MI Emirates in 2023/24, Dubai Capitals in 2024/25 and Desert Vipers in 2025/26.
- No club has defended the title, and no club has won it twice.
- Desert Vipers lost the 2022/23 and 2024/25 finals before winning in 2025/26. They are the only side to have played three finals.
- All four finals were played in Dubai.

## Every ILT20 final, 2022/23 to 2025/26

Four finals have been played. Each row below is read from the ball-by-ball record of the match itself, not from a summary elsewhere.

**Every ILT20 final, 2022/23 to 2025/26**

| Season | Champion | Runner-up | Won by | Final |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025/26 | Desert Vipers | MI Emirates | 46 runs | Dubai, 4 Jan 2026 |
| 2024/25 | Dubai Capitals | Desert Vipers | 4 wkts | Dubai, 9 Feb 2025 |
| 2023/24 | MI Emirates | Dubai Capitals | 45 runs | Dubai, 17 Feb 2024 |
| 2022/23 | Gulf Giants | Desert Vipers | 7 wkts | Dubai, 12 Feb 2023 |

The four margins fall into two pairs. Two finals were won by the side chasing, by seven wickets and by four wickets. Two were won by the side batting first, by 45 runs and by 46 runs — one run apart, in different seasons and between different teams.

## Four seasons, four different champions

Four seasons have produced four winners, and each of those clubs has exactly one title.

**ILT20 titles and lost finals by club**

| Club | Titles | Season won | Finals lost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Desert Vipers | 1 | 2025/26 | 2 |
| Dubai Capitals | 1 | 2024/25 | 1 |
| MI Emirates | 1 | 2023/24 | 1 |
| Gulf Giants | 1 | 2022/23 | 0 |

Nobody has defended. In the three chances there have been, no champion returned to the next season's final. [Gulf Giants](/teams/ilt20-gulf-giants) are the only champion with a clean final record, because 2022/23 is the only final they have played. [MI Emirates](/teams/ilt20-mi-emirates) won one and lost one; [Dubai Capitals](/teams/ilt20-dubai-capitals) did the same in the other order, losing in 2023/24 and winning in 2024/25.

Two of the league's six clubs have not reached a final: [Abu Dhabi Knight Riders](/teams/ilt20-abu-dhabi-knight-riders) and [Sharjah Warriorz](/teams/ilt20-sharjah-warriorz). Both have played every season, and neither has finished higher than third in a table we publish.

A longer record looks nothing like this: nineteen IPL seasons have produced eight champions, two of them on five titles each, as our [IPL winners page](/blog/ipl-winners-list) sets out. Four seasons is short enough that an even spread of titles is what you would expect anyway.

## Desert Vipers: two finals lost, then one won

The [Desert Vipers](/teams/ilt20-desert-vipers) have played three of the four finals, more than any other club, and lost the first two. In February 2023 the inaugural final went to Gulf Giants by seven wickets. In February 2025 Dubai Capitals beat them by four wickets. In January 2026 they beat MI Emirates by 46 runs.

One detail runs through all three, and a results list hides it. In every final they have played, the Vipers lost the toss and the opposition chose to field, so they batted first each time. Twice the chasing side got there — Gulf Giants in 2022/23, Dubai Capitals in 2024/25. The third time the Vipers set a total MI Emirates fell 46 runs short of. Same position at the toss, three times, two defeats and one title.

Their league record moved in the same direction. In 2024/25 they finished top of the table with seven wins from ten and lost the final. In 2025/26 they finished top again, with eight wins from ten, and won it. Both tables are published in full at [ILT20 2024/25](/tables/ilt20-2024-25) and [ILT20 2025/26](/tables/ilt20-2025-26).

## How an ILT20 season is put together

The open archive holds 34 matches for each of the last three seasons and 32 for the first. Our published tables show six clubs playing ten league matches each. Six times ten, halved because each match involves two teams, gives 30 league matches. our calculation That leaves four matches after the league stage in 2023/24, 2024/25 and 2025/26.

34 matches in the archive − 30 league matches = 4 matches decided after the league stage. For 2022/23 the archive holds 32 matches, two fewer. We do not publish a table for that season, so we cannot say from our own data whether the difference sits in the league stage or after it.

Ten league matches per club is a short season: in 2025/26 the sixth-placed side finished on six points and the top side on sixteen, five wins apart across ten games. Tables for every year we hold complete are on the [ILT20 points tables](/leagues/ilt20) hub, with points, position, form and net run rate for each club.

## Did the club that topped the table win the title?

We publish tables for three of the four seasons. In two of those three, the club that finished top of the league also won the final.

**League leader against champion, by season**

| Season | Table leader | Champion | Same club? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025/26 | Desert Vipers | Desert Vipers | Yes |
| 2024/25 | Desert Vipers | Dubai Capitals | No |
| 2023/24 | MI Emirates | MI Emirates | Yes |
| 2022/23 | no published table | Gulf Giants | — |

our calculation Two from three is not a rate anyone should lean on, and the exception is instructive: Dubai Capitals finished second in 2024/25 on twelve points, two behind the leaders on the table we publish at [ILT20 2024/25](/tables/ilt20-2024-25), and still took the title. In 2023/24 leader and champion were the same club, [MI Emirates](/tables/ilt20-2023-24), who topped that table on net run rate rather than on points.

## The widest net run rates on our tables

Across the three seasons we publish, the highest net run rate belongs to MI Emirates in 2023/24, at +1.469, and the lowest to Sharjah Warriors in that same season, at −1.608. Both extremes came out of one ten-match league stage, which is mostly a function of how little cricket there is to average over.

MI Emirates went on to win that season's title. Sharjah finished level on points with Desert Vipers at the foot of the table and were separated by net run rate — the number doing its actual job, as a tie-break rather than a rating. How it is worked out, ball by ball, is set out in our [guide to net run rate](/guides/how-net-run-rate-works).

No club has gone through an ILT20 league stage unbeaten in the seasons we hold, and none has gone through without a win.

## The toss in the four finals

In all four ILT20 finals the side that won the toss chose to field. Not one captain has batted first by choice.

Two of those four toss winners went on to win the match: Gulf Giants in 2022/23 and Dubai Capitals in 2024/25, both of whom chased down the total they had asked the opposition to set. The other two were beaten by the side they put in. Dubai Capitals won the toss and fielded in 2023/24 and lost by 45 runs to MI Emirates; MI Emirates made the same call in 2025/26 and lost by 46 runs to Desert Vipers. Dubai Capitals are the only club to have won a final toss twice, and they chose the same way both times.

our calculation Two wins from four for the toss winner carries no information, and we would rather say so than dress it up as a trend. What is worth noting is the unanimity of the decision: four captains out of four chose to chase.

## Every final has been played in Dubai

All four finals were staged in Dubai: 12 February 2023, 17 February 2024, 9 February 2025 and 4 January 2026. No other city has hosted one.

No club has therefore won the title away from Dubai, which leaves any question of home advantage unanswerable from four matches at one ground.

The 2025/26 final also came on 4 January, more than a month earlier in the calendar than the previous three, which all fell in February. The archive records the date and nothing about the reason, so we note the shift and leave it there. Fixture dates for the current season are on the [ILT20 league page](/leagues/ilt20).

## How we read these results

A champion comes from the one match the archive marks as the final: the outcome field names the winner and carries the margin with it. That is a single match per season, either present in the record or not, and for the ILT20 it is present for all four.

Points tables are a harder problem. A table is only right if every league match is counted, because one missing fixture moves both the points and the net run rate. We publish tables for three ILT20 seasons and not for 2022/23, where the open archive does not hold a complete league stage. That is why this winners list covers four seasons and our table set covers three.

### A note on club names

The archive writes the Sharjah club as Sharjah Warriors in 2023/24 and as Sharjah Warriorz in the seasons after. It is one club under two spellings. We keep the season's spelling inside each table and file the club under a single page at [Sharjah Warriorz](/teams/ilt20-sharjah-warriorz). Splitting one club into two, or merging two that were never the same, is the most common error in lists of this kind.

### What four seasons cannot tell you

Everything here rests on four matches, or on three league tables. That is enough to say what happened and not enough to say what tends to happen. Four champions in four years is a fact, not evidence that the league is unusually even, and we make no such claim.

## Where the numbers come from

All four finals, their margins, venues, dates and tosses come from the open [Cricsheet](https://cricsheet.org/) archive, published under the Open Data Commons Attribution License 1.0 (ODC-BY). We parse the ball-by-ball files ourselves and build the tables from them; nothing here is copied from another list. Club names appear as the archive writes them for each season.

Fixtures, squads and season details can be checked against the official [ILT20 site](https://www.ilt20.ae/), and scorecards against [ESPNcricinfo](https://www.espncricinfo.com/). Where a spelling differs from ours, the difference is the season the name belongs to, not a different team.

## Questions people ask

### Who has won the ILT20?

Four clubs, one title each: Gulf Giants in 2022/23, MI Emirates in 2023/24, Dubai Capitals in 2024/25 and Desert Vipers in 2025/26.

### Has any team won the ILT20 twice?

No. Four seasons have produced four different champions, and no club has defended a title.

### Which club has lost the most ILT20 finals?

Desert Vipers, with two: 2022/23 to Gulf Giants and 2024/25 to Dubai Capitals. They won in 2025/26, so their record from three finals is one win and two defeats.

### Where are ILT20 finals played?

All four have been played in Dubai. The most recent, on 4 January 2026, was the earliest in the calendar; the other three fell in February.

### Which ILT20 clubs have never reached a final?

Abu Dhabi Knight Riders and Sharjah Warriorz. Both have played all four seasons without reaching the final.

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