As things stand, CSK and LSG are the frontrunners to take up two of those three remaining spots. RCB, who beat SRH on Thursday have another must-win match coming up against the Gujarat Titans, who are one win away from equalling their league stage performance of last year – 10 wins.
IPL POINTS TABLE | SCHEDULE & RESULTS
With 5 matches left to play in the league stage of IPL 2023, there remain 32 possible combinations of results. TOI looks at each of these possibilities to calculate the chances of individual teams making it to the playoffs.
As things stand, one team is guaranteed to finish on top, two others are almost certain to make the play-offs, two others are strong contenders, leaving three to cling on and hope. The bottom two are already knocked out.
TOI’s Shankar Raghuraman does the number crunching to determine how the teams stand as of Friday, May 19 morning, in 9 points:
1. GT are already guaranteed to top the table at the end of the group stage
2. CSK’s chances of making it to the top four on points are also very good at 93.8% with only two possible combinations of results placing them in fifth spot – both involving RCB, LSG and MI winning their last games and CSK losing to DC. The result of the PK-RR game would not matter in that case
(Photo: @tata_neu Twitter)
3. Third placed LSG are in a very similar situation with a 93.8% chance of being among the top four in terms of points. The only way they can finish fifth on points is if they lose their last game and RCB, CSK and MI win theirs
4. Thursday’s win has moved RCB to fourth place and their chances of making the top four on points are now at 75%. They can finish fifth on points if they lose their last game against GT and MI win against SRH
5. Fifth placed MI’s situation is a mirror image of RCB’s. They too have a 75% chance of being among the top four in terms of points but can finish fifth if they lose their last game to SRH and RCB beat GT. They are, however, worse placed in case of a tie because of a lower NRR than RCB
6. RR are now in sixth spot, and they can only make the play-offs through the NRR route since the best they can achieve is tied fourth (12.5% chance). For that to happen, they must win against PBKS and hope SRH beat MI and GT beat RCB. The good news for them is that currently their NRR is better than two of the three teams they could be tied with – MI and KKR – and just a little worse than the third, RCB
(AI image)
7. Seventh placed KKR too have a 12.5% chance of being among the top four on points and even that will involve a three-way or four-way tie. They will need to win their last match with a big margin to make up for their currently poor NRR. But they still need GT to beat RCB and SRH to beat MI
8. Eighth placed PBKS too are in a very similar situation – a 12.5% chance of tying for fourth spot with one to three other teams and a NRR that is slightly worse than even KKR’s. They need SRH and GT to win their last games to stand a chance even if they beat RR
9. Ninth and tenth placed SRH and DC are already out of the play-off race
How we calculate these probabilities:
We looked at all 32 possible combinations of results with 5 matches remaining. We assumed that for any given match the chances of either side winning are even. We then looked at how many of the combinations put each team in one of the top four slots by points. That gives us our probability number. We do not take net run rates or No Results (NR) into consideration because predicting those in advance is impossible.
