Race for IPL 5 Playoffs

World’s most popular T20 cricket tournament, the Indian Premier League is gearing up for a flamboyant finish. The teams are ready for the big fights. The business end of IPL 5 is not yet upon us but the race for the four playoff spots is heating up. The format of playoffs is similar as last IPL:

Here is the IPL 5 playoffs format:

• The top two teams will play Qualifier 1: winner goes directly to final and loser gets a chance to play winner of Eliminator.
• The Eliminator will be between teams at 3rd and 4th spot in the league points table: winner will play loser of Qualifier 2.
• The Winner of Qualifier 2 will play in Final against Winner of Qualifier 1.
• So, the top 2 teams of league table have more chance to reach Final.

Delhi Daredevils and Kolkata Knight Riders are at the top two spots right now and sure of berth in playoffs. Let us have a look at top two teams:

Delhi Daredevils: Points: 16 | Matches left: 6 | Opponents: KKR, DC, CSK, KXIP, RCB, KXIP.

Delhi has to win only one match to be safe to qualify for playoffs.Delhi Daredevils, this season, with some brilliant transfers and purchases, has gone onto be stronger than ever. Although Delhi has been average performers over the 4 seasons, this year things look different and better. Delhi has a strong line-up of batsmen that boasts of David Warner, Kevin Pietersen, Ross Taylor and Venugopal Rao all are prolific players in T20. They have good all-rounders in Irfan Pathan and Andre Russell. In bowling part, Morne Morkel and Umesh Yadav are there, with Morkel being among the wickets. One headache for Delhi now is the selection of foreign players since many of their best batsmen are foreigners. Anyhow DD will be first to qualify for playoffs.

Kolkata Knight Riders: Points: 13 | Matches left: 6 | Opponents: PWI, DD, MI, CSK, MI, PWI.

Kolkata looks set to take one level up this time. Their fans and owner Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, hopes to lift the IPL trophy this time. Last year they entered semi-finals and qualified for Champions League. They have the costliest player in IPL, Gautam Gambhir as skipper. The presence of the all-rounders Jacques Kallis, Yusuf Pathan and Shakib Al Hassan make it a tough team. Manoj Tiwary and Brendon Mccullum haveadded upto the batting strength. Brett Lee, Sunil Narine, L Balaji and Ikbal Abdulla are the part of bowling attack which looks solid, with good performance from Narine. Kolkata should look to make it to top two spots in the table.

Tags: Cricket, Delhi Daredevils, Indian Premier League, IPL 2012, IPL 5, Kolkata Knight Riders, Playoffs