IPL 2019: Qualifying scenario

After almost two months of entertainment, this year’s IPL is finally coming to an end. The best part of this year is that we are yet to decide on one position and there are still four teams fighting for it.

To start with, Chennai Super Kings and Delhi Capitals became the first two teams to qualify for the playoffs which were followed by the Mumbai Indians who prevailed in the super over thriller against Sunrisers Hyderabad. A win for SRH that day would have ended Rajasthan’s journey but fortunately for them, they are still in the contention.

Now, here are the matches left:

Match 53 – DC vs RR in Delhi,
Match 54 – RCB vs SRH in Bengaluru,
Match 55 – KXIP vs CSK,
Match 56 – MI vs KKR in Mumbai

RR will take on DC in the first match on Saturday.

RR wins: Stays alive in the contention and will have to hope that SRH and KKR loses.
RR loses: They will be eliminated from the tournament.
DC wins: They have a great chance to make it to the top-two.
DC loses : A setback for them as they will play the eliminators instead of qualifiers.

SRH takes on RCB in the second match on Saturday.

SRH wins: If SRH wins, they will go an inch closer to the playoffs, adding more pressure on KKR and RR will be eliminated from the contention.

SRH loses: Thanks to their good NRR, they can still make it to the playoffs if KKR loses the game.

KXIP will take on CSK in the first game on Sunday.
Theoretically, there’s still a chance for KXIP to make it to the playoffs. They need to beat CSK by a mammoth margin and hope that the other three teams in the contention lose heavily.

KKR will take on MI in the second game on Sunday.

KKR wins: If SRH loses the game on Saturday, a win here will take them through. If SRH wins, KKR will have to defeat MI by a huge margin, blame the net run rate.

KKR loses: They have to badly wish that SRH loses their previous game by a huge margin so that their net run rate goes bad, lesser than KKR.

If MI wins: If MI wins, they can play the qualifiers and if CSK loses their final game, with a win here MI will take the first position in the points table.

SRH has the best chance of making it to the playoffs followed by KKR. A little advantage for KKR is that they play MI in the last match of the tournament and they will know how to approach the game right from ball one because of the previous day’s results.