The last two matches of the IPL 2019 involved two teams that had already qualified for the playoffs and two that were vying to. While Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians wanted to secure the first two places in the first two in the league table, their opponents, King’s XI Punjab and Kolkata Knight Riders were trying to qualify for the only place in the playoff. Kings XI stood little chance of qualification given the margin of victory that they needed over Super Kings. But KKR could qualify with a win over Mumbai Indians. If Mumbai Indians won the match, Sunrisers Hyderabad would qualify instead.

KL Rahul played a telling knock to see Kings XI finish on a high Source

In the first match between Chennai Super Kings and Kings XI Punjab, Sam Curran bowled Shane Watson within the power play. Faff du Plessis and Suresh Raina batted sensibly thereafter, rotating the strike and dispatching the loose ball. They changed gears when Murugan Ashwin and Andrew Tye came on to bowl. Faff du Plessis reached his half-century off 37 balls and Suresh Raina completed his 50 in 34 balls. The two batsmen scored 36 runs off the fourteenth and the fifteenth overs bowled by M Ashwin and Tye before Curran came back for his second spell and got Suresh Raina (53 off 38) caught at short fine leg. Faff du Plessis was one shot away from a century when Curran cut short his inning with a yorker on 96 off 55 balls. Chennai Super Kings could add only seven more runs in the remaining 8 balls even as Shami claimed two wickets to end their inning on 170 for 5 wickets.

Rahul came out blazing for Kings XI Punjab when chasing. His first three scoring shots were all sixes. Kings XI reached 100 runs in only 9 overs with Rahul on 68. To stay in the top two, Chennai Super Kings had to make sure that Kings XI did not score the required runs within 14.2 overs. Harbhajan Singh came to their rescue. He got both Rahul and Gayle caught off successive balls to bring a 108 first wicket partnership to an end. A subdued Chris Gayle scored only 28 runs at a run per ball. Although M Agarwal fell early Nicholas Pooran scored an aggressive 36 off 22 balls. Mandeep Singh and Sam Curran saw King’s XI home with two overs to spare.

Faff du Plessis 96 off 55 balls was in vain Source

The second game between Mumbai Indians and Kolkata Knight Riders was an important game because if KKR did win the game they would qualify for the playoff or else Sunrisers Hyderabad would. On a sticky wicket, Chris Lynn tried his best to give KKR a good start and scored 38 of the 49 runs on the board at the end of the power play. Hardik Pandya accounted for both Shubman Gill and Chris Lynn (41 in 29 balls) in consecutive overs to leave KKR at 56 for two wickets. Dinesh Karthik and Robin Uthappa could not adjust to the pace of the wicket and Krunal Pandya bowled a tight spell of 4 overs for 14 runs to suffocate the run scoring.

Malinga grabbed Kartik and Andre Russell’s wickets to further compound KKR’s woes. Nitish Rana tried to boost the KKR scoring rate with a cameo of 26 runs of 13 balls but Robin Uttapa, who got out to the penultimate ball of the KKR inning just couldn’t put bat to ball. Jasprit Bumrah accounted for Uthappa and Rinku on the last two balls of the inning and KKR ended up with a paltry 133 runs for the loss of 5 wickets. Uthappa had played 47 balls for his 40 runs. KKR’s problem was that 60 balls, or half the overs in the KKR innings, were dot balls. Their batsmen tried to hit the ball too hard on a pitch where the ball was not coming on to the bat.

Rohit Sharma scored his second half-century of the season as Mumbai Indians win Source

Mumbai Indians got off to a great start and Russell Arnold bore the brunt of the openers when they scored 21 runs off his first over. Quinton de Kock was out after a brisk knock of 30 runs off 23 balls. Surya Kumar Yadav and Rohit Sharma then concentrated on rotating the strike and punishing the bad balls. Sharma reached his fifty off 44 balls and saw Mumbai Indians home without further mishap. While Sharma remained not out with 55 runs off 48 balls Suryakumar Yadav ended up with 46 off 27. KKR lost their chance of a place in the playoffs along with the match which meant that Sunrisers Hyderabad qualified.