NEW DELHI: Rajasthan Royals bore the brunt of their failure in peaking towards the business end of the tournament, finishing third on the points table as their last IPL league game against leaders Kolkata Knight Riders was washed out at Guwahati yesterday.
The resultant outcome meant both sides got one point each and Sunrisers Hyderabad clinched a second spot with a better Net Run Rate than Royals’ side.
Royals cannot afford to lose their Eliminator clash to Royal Challengers Bengaluru following a 16-run defeat in their previous outing against KKR.
As It Happened
After that match, KKR finished on 20 points while SRH were on 17 along with RR.
SRH had NRR of 0.414 while RR finished with a NRR of only 0.273.
KKR will play Sunrisers Hyderabad in the first Qualifier in Ahmedabad on Tuesday followed by the ‘Eliminator’ between RR and RCB in the same venue.
Rajasthan Royals would blame themselves for getting into a nice little rut after an incredible run during the first half of the tournament when they had won eight out of their nine games.
However, campaign lost steam toward back-end where it lost four matches on bounce and facing marauding RCB without Jos Buttler for such crucial games is going to be difficult task as RCB are coming off three wins from four matches.
On another hand, SRH, who have been redefining power-hitting using ‘Impact Sub’, produced one of its finest chases despite being played upon yet another motorway-like surface yesterday’s afternoon. Andhra Pradesh pulled off a chase of 215/5 against depleted Punjab Kings with five balls remaining thereby giving them much-needed boost to their NRR.