IPL Pulse - The suspense ends

Good morning

The league stage is done and dusted. Say goodbye to double-header days, points table rejigs and net run-rate math. It's down to the four matches and the four teams that matter.

Need a pre-Playoffs refresh of the last two league games? We have you covered with Cricketlineguruji Pulse, your quick scan of the IPL universe.

Last night in five lines

Archer stars with bat and ball to headline RR's day

Royals down MI to take fourth spot, sending PBKS, KKR packing

KL Rahul hits sixth fifty of the season

Kuldeep nearly takes hat-trick as KKR lose 7-35

DC finish with hat-trick of wins, KKR end seventh

Oh, that happened

Rajasthan Royals confirmed their Playoffs spot, edging into the top four by replacing Punjab Kings, and ending weeks of suspense around the cast of the final four. Eventually, PBKS' streak-breaking win v LSG wasn't enough, losing out with a one-point difference. It also extinguished KKR's faint hopes 22 balls into their game.

Pulse Awards

Jofra Archer gets the Double Troubleaward for turning into an all-rounder when it mattered most. He first cracked his top IPL score, before hitting Test lengths and plucking out two out of the top three (and one other later). If you had him in your fantasy team, that's a jackpot.

Keeper Abhishek Porel reluctantly gets the haste makes waste award for celebrating before properly securing a catch, depriving Kuldeep Yadav of a hat-trick.

Manish Pandey gets the Marathon Man award for his everlasting presence in the league, finally reaching the 4,000-run mark. At 164 innings, he's the third slowest to the milestone. For context, his 3,000th IPL run came six years ago.

Now that it's confirmed, PBKS get the Ultimate Bungle award for somehow missing out on the Playoffs after staying unbeaten through seven games. An astonishing tale of two halves.

MI win the Cheap Thrillsaward for ensuring their net run-rate stays just above LSG, preventing a No.10 finish. It did ruin a perfectly possible pattern though: their last five points table standings before this season were: 10th, 4th, 10th, 4th.

Talking point

KKR might have effected a remarkable turnaround, but once they were confirmed to be out of the playoffs race, issues crept up in their final game. They gave away too many runs in the middle overs, dropped three catches (a rare lapse) and slipped from 128/3 to 163 all out, finishing seventh after a see-saw season.

Chatter

"I'm never one to back down, those thoughts never came to me." Ajinkya Rahane reveals that he never considered stepping down as captain during KKR's initial wretched run.

"I think SRH are looking very strong. When their top 3 score runs, that team becomes very difficult to stop." Axar Patel knows who he is backing in the IPL playoffs.

"He's an absolute athlete. I've seen the guy run from long-on to long-on the whole game and still come back and bowl 140-kph yorkers." Lungi Ngidi was pretty impressed with Mitchell Starc's fitness levels.

"I wasn't expecting to bat so early. Because of the impact sub I hardly get to bat. When the coach said put the pads on, I was surprised." Jofra Archer wasn't the only one who was surprised.

"I'm definitely not fit," declared RR captain Riyan Parag after his side's win over MI. "I was not supposed to play today. I was not supposed to play another game." But he has also confirmed that he is definitely not missing the Eliminator.

Stat snack

Not once in 14 innings in IPL 2026 did both KKR openers survive the powerplay.

Gossip column

After a forgettable campaign, there's chatter around LSG, and the path ahead for this year's wooden spooner. At the forefront of that is a potential captaincy change, with Tom Moody openly saying that leadership will be a "serious consideration", suggesting a reset. It remains to be seen if the incumbent skipper jumps ship.

Tonight's watchlist

Needed a double-take, but here's a reminder that tonight is a rare IPL-less night. The next game is tomorrow, when RCB take on GT in the first qualifier for a direct entry into the final.

Reckless prediction for tonight

You switch on the TV at 7.30pm IST, only to catch re-runs of April, when PBKS were favourites to win the title.