The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 playoffs are almost confirmed as three teams – Gujarat Titans (GT), Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) – have booked their spots. The fourth team is still undecided as Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), Mumbai Indians (MI) and Rajasthan Royals (RR) are in the contention.
Notably, RCB and MI have the brightest opportunity to secure the final birth while the Royals would need both RCB and MI to lose their matches in a specific way to go to the next round. On that note, let’s have a look at the qualification scenarios for RCB, MI and RR:
Royal Challengers Bangalore
Among the three teams, RCB has the most favourable position to advance to the next round. A win against Gujarat would be sufficient for them to qualify, unless MI’s winning margin over Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) is significant enough to surpass RCB’s Net Run Rate (NRR).
The Challengers currently have an NRR of +0.180, while Mumbai have -0.128. Since RCB would be playing the final league match, they will have the benefit of knowing the required outcome against GT to secure qualification.
Mumbai Indians
In case RCB face a defeat against GT and MI manage to beat SRH, the Rohit Sharma-led side would secure qualification in the playoffs. But, if both RCB and MI win their respective matches, then the NRR would come into play.
For MI to surpass RCB’s current NRR, they would need to defeat SRH by a significant margin. Even in such a scenario, the situation would change if RCB achieve a victory against GT by a margin that allows them to overtake MI on NRR.
Rajasthan Royals
Although the Royals are mathematically still in contention, they do not have control over their fate. In order to qualify for the playoffs, both RCB and MI must lose their respective fixtures. Currently, the Sanju Samson-led Rajasthan have 14 points. If both RCB and MI face defeats, there will be three teams with 14 points each.
