What a match we have had. Even the Chris Gayle 99 could not take Kings XI Punjab towards the victory. That's how tough is the competition in this year's IPL. Still its not sure who will make to the top 4 teams. With the loss of Kings XI Punjab, the points table is very much open now for teams to qualify.
And let's not forget the fact that the KXIP management refused to include Gayle in the playing XI during the initial 6-7 matches, because they wanted to give repeated chances to Glan Maxwell and mediocre players such as Mandeep Singh and Sarfaraz Khan. Gayle has played a huge role during the second half of the group stage, and without him, KXIP would have been in very bad shape.
Chris Gayle is a big name in this short format of cricket and his position exceptionally upper side. Just after Chris Gayle back into the squad implies regeneration of hope that boost KXIP in the race of playoffs. It's unbelievable how Maxwell keeps playing everything when he has been struggling so far. Honestly, RR batting is too good in chasing as KXIP bowlers were lesser effective yesterday.
@onecall123 despite being 41 year’s old Chris Gayle plays like a player who’s in his mid thirties, and I’m hoping that we continue to see some more big innings from him provided KXIP can manage to survive in this tournament.
If both DC and RCB lose their matches, then everything will come down to the RCB vs DC clash on Monday. The winner will qualify for the playoffs.
And also the losing team may have chance to slip from the top four because lot of teams will stick with 14 points so the run rate will decide which one to go and definitely RCB and DC has less run rate difference even though they are in top of the table now.
MI won the match one sided by 9 wickets and Ishan was not out at 72. DC is not consistent team and in last 5 matches they have lost 4. Only some days they play amazing cricket and rest of their matches are very ordinary and this would not help them in the upcoming matches with type of performances unless they make some change in plan as a team unit.
MI will mostly be top of the table it seems now.
You can simply generalize their performance how DC were flopped their last four games. They must work on their batting side. Otherwise I don't see them in playoffs. If they manage qualify, then there will be no fun since KXIP can give more challeng.
@ibuddy122505 DC immediately needs to introspect what’s went wrong for them in the past few matches, and then quickly fix it or else they’ll be dumped from the tournament.
Sources:
https://www.cricbuzz.com/cricket-news/114728/chris-gayle-t20-crickets-nonpareilhttps://www.cricbuzz.com/cricket-news/114738/ipl-2020-delhi-capitals