Indian Premier League T20 Cricket: Race To Playoffs Begun - CSK First Team To Qualify For Playoffs

Hello Sports Lovers,

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Indian Premier League Cricket Tournament has already seen 15 matches played in the UAE leg of the tournament and some of the teams which faltered badly during last time at the same venues, have been successful this time with better play by almost the same players who failed last time.

As the race to the playoffs is heating up after each team playing 11 matches, here I am with details of each team's chances of making it into the playoffs.

Oh, well, let me tell you that, CSK became the First team to qualify for the playoffs. Just to recollect, they finished Seventh in the last edition at same place!!!

CSK Qualifies for Playoffs:

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Chennai Super Kings along with Delhi Capitals are the 2 most consistent teams in this year's IPL and they were in top 2 positions even in Indian leg of the tournament.

Now, CSK has become the First team to qualify for the playoffs with 9 wins from 11 games with the 2 losses coming in India. CSK have won 4 out of 4 matches they have played in UAE so far and they are almost certain to finish in top 2 with another win as they have better run rate than all other teams.

CSK's success is mainly because of their opening pair of Ruturaj Gaikwad and Faf Du Plessis who have given good start in all the matches and scored over 400 runs each and CSK's middle order haven't got much exposure to be frank because of their openers dominance with next best being 278 runs from Moeen Ali with most of those runs coming back in India.

Ravindra Jadeja has been good for them whenever they needed some quick runs.

As for as their bowling is concerned, the return to form by Dwayne Bravo has been a good one for them with Shradul Thakur, Ravindra Jadeja along with Deepak Chahar providing crucial breakthroughs.

The form of Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu and their skipper MS Dhoni will not be a concern for them, but suppose their beleaguered openers to fail, they may find it difficult to set a good score or to chase the huge totals.

Race To Other 3 Playoff Spots:

With CSK ensuring their qualification to playoffs, 5 other teams are in contention for the playoffs with 3 more spots still to be filled with SRH becoming the First team to be out of race to the playoffs and RR and PBKS have almost in same fate.

Let's go in the order of the points table as of now:

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Delhi Capitals:

DC have ensured they continue to be in top 2 as they have won 2 of their 3 matches in UAE with a rare batting failure against KKR leading them to lose the match.

Apart from that loss to KKR, they seems to be the team to certainly going out to playoffs in top 2 as they have 8 wins from 11 matches and their net run rate on positive side.

The return of their former captain Shreyas Iyer has bolstered their middle order and their openers Shikhar Dhawan and Prithvi Shaw along with skipper Rishabh Pant are among the runs.

DC's bowling unit is one of the best in the tournament with the likes of Kagiso Rabada Anrich Nortje, R Ashwin and Avesh Khan providing crucial breakthroughs for them.

Let's hope DC crosses the final hurdle this time after their finishing runner ups last time.

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Royal Challengers Bangalore:

RCB is another team who have been making the news and their 7 wins from 11 games means, they need to ensure to win atleast another match out of the 3 remaining ones to ensure they go to playoffs as KKR and MI are the only other 2 teams who can reach 16 points if they win all their remaining matches.

RCB will be happy with the performance by their skipper Virat Kohli along with new wicket keeper Shrikar Bharat and Glenn Maxwell scoring bulk of their runs and if Padikkal and AB De Villiers along with lower order batters gets some runs before playoffs, they will be one of the strongest batting units.

Their bowling has been good in UAE with purple cap holder Harshal Patel and Yuzvendra Chahal and Glenn Maxwell have also been among the wickets with Mohammed Siraj among some of the economical bowlers.

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Kolkata Knight Riders:

The return to form by Andre Russell and KKR's opening pair of Shubman Gill and Venkatesh Iyer along with Rahul Tripathi augurs well for KKR although there are concerns over their skipper Eoin Morgan's form, but as long as team keeps winning, he will be excused.

KKR's bowling is good so far with spinners Varun Chakravarthy and Sunil Narine being economical and also among the wickets and their fast bowlers Lockie Ferguson, Prasidh Krishna and even Andre Russell have got wickets and made those 3 wins out of 4 matches possible.

KKR with better run rate and having to face 3 bottom placed teams in their 3 remaining matches, they can fancy their chances of making it to playoffs.

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Mumbai Indians:

MI, the last year's champions have been inconsistent so far in UAE leg with just 1 win from 4 matches they played.

MI's batting is their main concern so far with inconsistent form for Rohit Sharma, Surya Kumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan not among runs and they have to depend heavily on Quinton De Kock and Saurabh Tiwari.

But, with Hardik Pandya and Kieron Pollard among some runs in the last match, MI hopes to continue the same against Second ranked DC in tomorrow's match with other 2 matches being against low ranked RR and SRH.

MI bowling has been good with Trent Boult, Jasprit Bumrah, Adam Milne played well so far and their spinners Krunal Pandya and Rahul Chahar were good in patches and they need to come good in the slow pitches in UAE for them to finish in top 4.

MI, even if win all their remaining matches, they can go up to 16 points and their poor net run rate may haunt them unless they come up with huge wins in the remaining matches.

That's all friends in this blog and I hope you found this interesting one.

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