the last four of the IPL

The last few leagues matches of the IPL have kept the nerve on the hook. They were the deciding matches for the 3rd and 4th berths in the semis.


Rajasthan Royals(RR) which were the dark horses, started the league round with a loss and critics (including me) were just mocking at them.At that moment I was just thinking" why and What the hell are they playing."


I felt they were playing just for namesake and for benefiting other teams with additional match points. Only of late did I realise that we critics had just made a mockery of ourselves as RR topped the table in the league round(still I feel that time favoured them and they shall be out in the Semis :-( ).


Punjab Kings XI started with two consecutive losses. This didn't deter their belief and proved that they are simply the king makers.


The remaining two berths was really left open.


At one stage the Mumbai Indians(MI) required 2 wins from 3 matches and Cchennai Super Kings(CSK) 1 from two. Delhi DareDevils(DDD) had to win its one and only remaining match and still wait for other teams' results. They had almost nothing in their hand.



The ROAD to SEMIs:



thursday 22 may:

delhi vs kolata-----rain plays a spoilsport as each team is awarded a point each



sat 24 may:

ddd vs MI----DDD beat MI by 5 wics. thanks to dinesh karthck for a splendid performance which keeps DDDs hopes alive.

CSk vs RR-----an important match for CSK but they lose it by about 10 runs, so still not confirmed to semis.



sun 25 may a dead rubber day:

RCB vs DC--- RCB won (but both were out of the semis)

KKR vs KXIP---KKR won this nail biting match(but not an important one as KKR was ruled of semis and KXIP was already into the top four)



Mon 26 may:

RR vs MI--- MI lose with some last ball panic. takes MI to a tougher but still possible situation, that is CSK had to lose their match against DC and MI must win their last match.

This confirms DDD a berth for semis in an unexpected fashion.



Tue 27 may:



DC vs CSK-----CSK have a facile win and thus securing a position in the DLF iPL semis......

and MI were to be left of the tournament .



wed 28may ----again a dead rubber day:

The final two matches of the league round were again only dead rubber matches which the RCB and MI will want to win to salvage some pride and the match between RR and KXIP will be a warmup for their semis.



MI vs RCB----MI win by 9 wick

KXIP vs RR---- RR lose by 41 runs.





and now the semis intenarary is like this:



RR vs DDD

KXIP vs CSK








Mumbai Indians lost the two matches by a whisker (which later on gave a death blow).


The first match they lost by a run against KXIP when they required 2 runs of the last ball to win a exciting contest. the second they lost against RR in the a similar situation but in a complimentary fashion. This time they required to stop 2 runs of the last ball and Jayasurya did panic to let loose the second run.


This made them lose the match and confirmed the position of DDD in the semis (as they were having 15 pts).


Now MI had to hope that CSK lose their final match against Deccans, so that CSK could be halted with 14 pts on the board; and then MI should win the final match against RCB so as to secure 14 pts. this would thus lead to a tie w.r.t points. The next to be considered parameter would be Net Run Rate which obviously MI were pretty ahead.


But did things work out the Mumbaikars way?Not at all.


The DC vs CSK match was just favoring CSK. DC won the toss and elected to bat first which also seemed to work out in CSKs way as Dhoni wanted to feild first if he had won the toss. DC were 26 for the loss of gilly and out of form Gibbs in 6 overs that is powerplay time. They went on put up a target of 147 for CSK. CSK won the match comfortably with 4 balls to spare, thus ruling MI out of the semis as the CSK now had 16 pts in their kitty, which irrespective of MI winning over RCB(which will keep MI on table with only 14 pts)will take CSK to semis.




This makes the first round of IPL to come to a close with the following listing:






position team played won lost NR pts
1 RR 14 11 3 - 22

(the underdogs who turned things to gold )

2 KXIP 14 10 4 - 20

(no looking back )

3 CSk 14 8 6 - 16


(well begun is half done; won first four matches)

4 DDD 14 7 6 1 15 (made it to the top 4)

5 MI 14 7 7 - 14
(4 consecutive losses at beginning cost them dearly)

6 KKR 14 6 7 1 1 3

(started with a smash ended with a bash but smashed and bashed out of semis)

7 RCB 14 4 10 - 8

(lost their way)

8 DC 14 2 12 - 4
(no charge at all)

so if the match between DDD and KKR would not have been abondoned, then what would be the situation....???????????????

Well, if DDD would have won that match there would not be any impact,but if KKR would have won that then the last position for the semis would be the survival of the fittest between the three-DDD,KKR,MI. the team with better runrate would have made to the semis. so probably MI would have an upper hand as they were fairing better in terms of Run rate.

Disclaimer: This blog is all with respect to the author's view and was not meant to hurt anyone. Wrong data, if any is not intentional. This is not a copied content.