Indian Premier League has hardly a week left for its conclusion and just two days left to decide who would be third and fourth team playing in the play-offs. Rajasthan lost its match against already out of the league Deccan. This implies that Rajasthan is out of the race even though they have to play Mumbai Indians on 20th May. That would rather be an important match for Mumbai if Bangalore and Punjab wins their respective matches. Equation would be pretty simple of Bangalore and Punjab lose their matches – That would bring Chennai and Mumbai in the play-offs.
Two matches today – Delhi vs Punjab and Kolkata vs Pune.
The second match hardly plays a role in the decision of who would be final four because Kolkata is already in and Pune is already out. Yes this could be an important match keeping in mind Ganguly playing for Pune against his home team Kolkata. Pune should ideally win this match to end their dreadful IPL 2012 run with a win.
The first match is important in context of this IPL as Punjab has to beat Delhi to stay in the race of play-offs. Delhi won’t worry about the result as they are already in but they would like to keep the momentum going from right this match until the finals if they make it. Punjab played very well against CSK to beat them. Return of Gilchrist boosted confidence of the team and he played major role in the win. Apart from Gilly, they have players like Hussey, Marsh, Chawal, Praveen Kumar, Mandeep Singh and Awana who can prove to be match winners.