Indian Premier League T20 Cricket: Race To Playoffs - CSK, DC And RCB Qualifies With KKR, RR, PBKS And MI To Fight For The Last Spot

Hello Sports Lovers,

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With another 7 matches to go including today's between top 2 teams CSK and DC, Indian Premier League going on in UAE has already seen 3 teams qualifying for the playoffs with as many as 4 more teams fighting for the lone last spot!!!!

Let's go with the details of the teams qualified as well as the teams giving it out their everything to earn that last spot.

Qualified Teams:

While one was already expecting the teams like Chennai Super Kings and Delhi Capitals to be qualified based on their stellar performances back in India, they continued their good performance even in UAE to find themselves as First 2 teams to qualify for the playoffs.

With them, there is another team which has qualified for the playoffs for the Second time on the trot and that is Royal Challengers Bangalore!!!!

Let's see a bit in detail for these 3 teams mentioned above.

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Chennai Super Kings:

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In last edition of the IPL, when CSK failed to qualify for the playoffs for the First time, there were talks of removing Dhoni as captain and also about the removal of some of the old horses like Suresh Raina and all.

But, the team management stood behind those players and even declared Dhoni will be their captain for 2 more seasons.

The backing by management has not only boosted the old players, but also inspired players like Ruturaj Gaikwad, Faf Du Plessis, Ravindra Jadeja, Dwayne Bravo and others and the result of that, CSK became the First team to be qualified for the playoffs this year!!!

CSK's core batting revolves around Ruturaj Gaikwad, Faf Du Plessis, Ambati Rayudu and Ravindra Jadeja. All the other batters including Dhoni, Raina, Moeen Ali have all been failure in the UAE leg and inspite of that, team is performing well and fittingly, they have qualified for the playoffs.

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Delhi Capitals:

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Delhi Capital's strength is their World class bowling and their batters haven't fallen back although their batting has lost some fire power in the last few matches.

Delhi's batting is mainly around Shikhar Dhawan, Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer with Prithwi Shaw injured and Steve Smith hasn't been in great form.

But, their bowling unit of Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortje, Avesh Khan, Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel has been so good that, they were able to defend even moderate totals scored by their batters.

DC has made it to the playoffs for the Third time on the trot and they will definitely try to cross the final hurdle this time.

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Royal Challengers Bangalore:

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RCB will be pretty pleased to be in playoffs for the consecutive time and hopefully, they can give a great sendoff to their captain Virat Kohli as he announced, he would like to step down from captaincy after this year's IPL, but will continue to play for RCB as a player.

RCB has been good with their opening pair of Kohli and Padikkal giving good starts in most of their matches and the middle order has been good and settled now with the likes of KS Bharat, Glenn Maxwell scoring runs.

Although, they are yet to see the usual ABD, they hope he finds some form in the remaining 2 matches before the playoff starts.

RCB's bowling is also much disciplined with Harshal Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammad Siraj and even part timers like Shahbaz Ahmed, Glenn Maxwell and George Garton** have been good in the slow UAE pitches.

If ABD and Dan Christian can contribute a bit more, RCB will be the the team to watch out for as the UAE pitches suits their style of batting and bowling.

Four teams fighting for final playoff place:

With Mumbai Indians failing to play near their last year's performance, KKR seems to be the most eligible team to make it to playoffs as a Fourth team, but there are other 2 teams PBKS and RR who are still in with a chance to make it there with very thin chances and many permutations and combinations to go their way.

As of now, KKR seems to be the one with a health net run rate and based on their current form.

There aren't many CoVid concerns as of today and that is something good for all the players and management and UAE Government and BCCI deserves a BIG applause for that.

Let's hope the tournament gets completed without any CoVid scares.

That's it from me guys, hope, you are all having a great start to your week :).

Happy Monday and great week ahead :)

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