Xtra Time Web Desk: Following the 7 wickets loss against Rajasthan Royals on Monday, Chennai Super Kings are staring at not qualifying for the playoffs for the first time in the history of IPL. MS Dhoni led franchise is the only team to have qualified for playoffs in each season since the inaugural edition in 2008. Technically the Super Kings are still not ruled out of a berth in playoffs but they have their task cut out. The Yellow Army has their remaining four matches against tough opponents like Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Kolkata Knight Riders and Kings XI Punjab. Let’s take a look at scenario how CSK can still make it to the knock out stages.
Scenario 1: CSK have played 10 games and won just 3 matches. They have 6 points and a net run rate of -0.463. With four games left to play in the league stage, Chennai must treat every match as a must-win encounter and they need to win them by a large margin in order to improve their poor NRR.
Scenario 2: CSK’s chance of landing into the top four will also depend on the performance of other franchises also. The major requirement behind Chennai’s qualification is that the top three teams – Delhi Capitals, Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore, remain where they are or, at the most, swap positions among each other.
Scenario 3: It is important that the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th teams in the points tally – Kolkata Knight Riders, Rajasthan Royals, Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kings XI Punjab do not exceed 12 points because if even one of these teams’ points rise to 14, then Super Kings will have another difficulty to overcome in the name of net run rate (considering that they win their remaining four games and accumulate 14 points).
Meanwhile, Stephen Fleming, the Head Coach of Chennai Super Kings had said that his team has run out of juice. “It’s fair to say looking at the table now that this team may have run out of juice,” Fleming said at the post-match presser,
He added, “If you’re looking at the three-year cycle – we won the first year; lost off the last ball last year; and we always thought that the third year with an ageing squad would be difficult. And Dubai [UAE] has challenged us with a whole new set of requirements.”