Picture Credit: BCCI/IPL
Kolkata Knight Riders started off the season on a very bright note by winning 3 out of 4 games they played against CSK, MI and PBKS but after that they faced an unreal decline by losing 5 consecutive matches to DC (twice), SRH, RR and GT. KKR after these consecutive losses made so many in changes in the Playing XI by even dropping retained players like Venkatesh Iyer and Varun Chakravarthy.
KKR have used most Players (20) in this IPL season so far and after facing lot of setback as they ended up defeating RR by 7 wickets but unfortunately lost to LSG by a big margin of 75 runs. With this, their hopes of entering IPL 2022 Playoffs remains questionable.
In this article, we will see what will be the best route for KKR to qualify for the IPL 2022 Playoffs and notably 1 more loss for KKR will also push them out of the Playoffs race officially.
- Currently LSG and GT are already having 16 points. Even if KKR win their remaining matches they will end up reaching 14 points in the table. Thus we will keep these two teams out of our calculation.
- RR are having exactly 14 points in the table and they will be facing DC, LSG and CSK in their upcoming games. Now, if we assume RR to lose their remaining games and stay at 14 points itself then, RCB, DC will be having 6 wins already & SRH, PBKS will be having 5 wins.
Remaining schedule of matches involving these four teams:
SRH vs RCB
RCB vs PBKS
PBKS vs DC
SRH vs PBKS
In this case it will be better if RCB & DC lose all their remaining matches (to stay at 12 points) while SRH and PBKS can win 1 game at maximum (to stay at 12 points). But looking at the above schedule this case isn't possible as definitely one out of the four teams will go to 14 (or) more points in the table.
Hence, KKR will have a job of going past RR's Net run rate in this scenario. but among SRH, RCB, PBKS, DC and RR the team which has the lowest NRR is RCB.
Thus we will calculate a scenario on
- LSG, GT, RR going past 14 points
- KKR and RCB having 14 points exactly
- PBKS, DC, SRH having less than 14 points.
Note:- CSK will get less than 14 points even they lose 1 more game and MI are already eliminated from IPL 2022 Playoffs race.
As per the above scenario
- KKR should win all their remaining games
- RCB, SRH, PBKS and DC can win 1 more game at maximum in upcoming schedule
Now PBKS will be facing RCB, SRH and DC in their upcoming matches and they can win only 1 game.
Notably, PBKS can't defeat DC because then in that case PBKS must lose to RCB and SRH, meanwhile RCB vs SRH schedule is also left which will make one from RCB (or) SRH to help win 2 of their remaining games.
If RCB defeats SRH today, then the remaining results should be:
- CSK should beat DC
- KKR should beat MI
- LSG vs GT (Any result is fine)
- RR should beat DC
- CSK vs MI (MI win then CSK will be eliminated)
- PBKS should beat RCB
- KKR should beat SRH
- CSK vs GT (GT win then CSK will be eliminated)
- LSG vs RR (Any result is fine)
- DC should beat PBKS
- MI should beat SRH
- KKR should beat LSG
- GT should beat RCB
- RR vs CSK (RR win then CSK will be eliminated)
- MI should beat DC
- SRH should beat PBKS.
CSK must lose one of their remaining match to either MI, GT or RR.
If SRH defeats RCB, then the remaining results should be:
- CSK should beat DC
- KKR should beat MI
- LSG vs GT (Any result is fine)
- RR should beat DC
- CSK vs MI (MI win then CSK will be eliminated)
- RCB should beat PBKS
- KKR should beat SRH
- CSK vs GT (GT win then CSK will be eliminated)
- LSG vs RR (Any result is fine)
- DC should beat PBKS
- MI should beat SRH
- KKR should beat LSG
- GT should beat RCB
- RR vs CSK (RR win then CSK will be eliminated)
- MI should beat DC
- PBKS should beat SRH.
CSK must lose one of their remaining match to either MI, GT or RR.
If the IPL 2022 goes as per these results then points table will be:
LSG, GT, RR > 14 Points
KKR, RCB = 14 Points
DC, SRH, PBKS, CSK, MI < 14 Points.
KKR should ensure they go past RCB's NRR alone in this case, which could be their best possible way to enter playoffs.