• The Royals have beaten the Super Kings in both their league matches, but that will count for little come tomorrow's Final.
  
• Graeme Smith, one of the leading scorer for the Royals, is out with a pulled hamstring. Will the Royals miss him or will they prove that it has always been about the team effort and not individuals?
  
• The Super Kings hardly looked like the material for a final but they're there. Will MS Dhoni lift his 2nd 20-20 trophy in the space of 8 months?
  
• Or will Shane Warne make sure that the Royal March ends the way it should?
  
• Sohail Tanvir, Shane Warne, and Shane Watson have 56 wickets between them. Will Raina, Badrinath, and Dhoni be able to stand up to them?
  
• The world's best spinners, Warne and Murali, will be up against each other. Warne has done far better than Murali in the IPL, but whose day will it be tomorrow?
  
• With Smith out, Akmal will probably play. That will make it 2 Pakistanis and 2 Australians for the Royals taking on 2 South Africans and 2 Sri Lankans for the Super Kings.
  
• MS Dhoni's bid price of $1.5 million is almost half that of the entire Rajasthan Royals squad. One is the most expensive player of the IPL, and the other the lowest priced franchise.
  
• Who will the Mumbai crowd support? The Royals kicked them out but it was the Super Kings who made it at their expense.
  
• There will be no SRK, no Priety Zinta, no Katrina Kaif, no Akshay Kumar. Instead the low profile owners, a cement company and a consortium of media professionals, will keenly watch the contest from their VIP boxes.

The story though is that its not 2 but 3 spots up for grabs.

Apart from the Rajhastan Royals, no one has garanteed a semi final spot yet. Not even the Kings XI after their dramatic 1 run win over the Mumbai Indians.

Plus with RCB shocking the daylights out of the Super Kings just the way their brand amabassador Katrina Kaif did in RACE, anything can happen and everything is open ended.

Any 3 out of the Kings XI, Super Kings, Indians, Daredevils, and the Knight Riders can join the Royals in the Final Four.

The RACE is still on and the climax is near.

But who will make it?

The Knight Riders play the Daredevils tonight. Its a very crucial match for the Riders, because if they lose, the RACE for them is all over. But if they win the RACE goes on. 2 points for the Riders tonight!

Tomorrow its the Kings XI against the Deccan Chargers. Deccan have hardly won, however with RCB's inspirational victory over CSK last night they could be pumped up to get a victory or 2 under their belt. Kings XI are too strong though. 2 points for the Kings XI.

Saturday is a BIG day. Its CSK vs RR and DDD vs MI. That's going to be huge.

CSK would need to win given their loss to RCB last night but the Royals have been on a roll and I don't see them losing before the semi finals, even if they try some new faces. 2 points for the Royals.

DDD and MI, both in the RACE for the semis will be in a must win situation. Soulberry tells me that the Monsoons have hit Delhi and rains could have the final say. Well then I say a point each here.

The 1st match on Sunday, RCB vs DC will be an irrelevant one in the context of the RACE.

The 2nd one though is KKR vs Kings XI and it will be another must win game for the Riders. I'm putting my top dollar on them. KKR will fight it till the end. Another 2 points to KKR.

On Monday we will finally see what we haven't yet in the IPL. As the Indians take on the Royals, it will be the epic battle between Sachin Tendulkar and Shane Warne. Going with history, I'd give this one to the Indians. 2 points to the Indians.

CSK with their backs towards the wall will take on the Chargers on Tuesday. For them it will be a must win game since KKR and MI would have gone ahead after their victories. But the Chargers in their last game of the tournament will give it everything. I see CSK going down. Sorry Ottayan. 2 points for the Chargers.

Wednesday, the final day of the group stages will see a top of the table clash between the Royals and the Kings XI and an irrelevant match between MI and RCB. 2 Points for RR and MI here.

That then will make the points table look like this:

1. Rajasthan Royals 22
2. Kings XI Punjab 18
3. Mumbai Indians 17
4. Kolkata Knight Riders 14
5. Chennai Super Kings 14
6. Delhi Daredevils 13

KKR have a better NRR currently, and with them winning their next 2 matches, they will maintain that lead.

Now lets say the rains stay away from Delhi and the Daredevils beat the Mumbai Indians. MI will still qualify, but then it will be 3 teams on 14 points - KKR, CSK, and DDD. As of now DDD have the better NRR so it will probably be them nosing ahead of KKR.

Now what if Kings XI lose against the Chargers. They will remain on 16 points then and their NRR will worsen because of 3 consecutive losses.

MI will also be on 16 since the game against DDD was not a washout.

Plus if CSK beat the Royals, it would put them on 16 as well.

And if DDD beat KKR tonight, and they win the game against MI on Saturday, they would be on 16 as well.

KKR will miss out then definitely with 4 teams on 16 points jostling for 3 positions.

The Kings XI could still miss out on NRR.

Mindboggling?

So was the bollywood movie.

The RACE is on and its for 3 places of the Final Four.

Who would have thought that Preity Zinta, Shahrukh Khan, and Mukesh Ambani would be fighting it out with GMR Holdings and India Cements for honours on a cricket field.

Or for that matter Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, and Mahendra Singh Dhoni - each one who has either been a captain or a vice captain of the Indian cricket team - competing for spots in the Final Four.

It is the last week of the IPL group stages and it promises to be the most exciting one.

A 2 day gap in something new on Well Pitched is a rarity, especially when the IPL is going on but it was a hectic weekend. I didn't miss any cricket though.

A few days ago I talked about the RACE to the Final Four and mentioned that the 4 matches between Thursday and Saturday were going to be ever so crucial.

Well, the results of those matches have turned the tables, but the RACE is still very much on.

The Daredevils' victory over the Chargers on Thursday left the table unchanged with DDD lingering in 5th place, between MI and KKR.

But it was Mumbai Indian's victory over the Knight Riders that has caused a worry in the DDD and KKR camp.

MI had the chance to level with DDD and KKR on 10 points by beating KKR on Friday. They did exactly that, but it wasn't only a victory.

It was a thumping victory!

It was a decimation of the Knight Riders who were bowled out for 67, the lowest score of the tournament.

With Jayasuriya in the form of 1996, MI chased that down in a mere 5 and half overs.

That not only put MI on equal points with DDD and KKR, it put them above the 2 teams on 4th place on the basis of Net Run Rate.

Had it been a close match, MI would have remained at 6th place but their total dominance over KKR means that now MI lie comfortably at number 4 with an advantage of having played fewer matches than DDD and KKR.

DDD's loss to Kings XI last night has further strengthened MI's position.

MI's fortunes have taken a drastic change and now they should be confidently eyeing the Final Four.

There was nothing new in the match between the 2 teams sponsored by Vijay Mallya. (How ironic is it that the team owned by Dr. Mallya is sitting at the bottom of the table, while the team he sponsors is right at the top)

• Glenn McGrath and Mohammad Asif opened the DDD bowling against Adam Gilchrist and Shahid Afridi. Who does one support in times like these?
  
• While McGrath snared his Aussie team mate, Afridi hit his Paki team mate for a 4 and a 6.
  
• RP Singh found something to be amused by when his India team mate, Gambhir hit him for consecutive sixes and a few boundaries.
  
• Ab De Villiers in the covers stopped a few thumping drives from Gibbs' bat. The latter let out a wry smile everytime that happened.
  
• 15 runs required of the last over. Sehwag had been there before. Luckily for him, Shoaib Malik was only on the field as a substitute.
  
• Amit Mishra bagging the 2nd hatrick of the IPL. The bowlers have definitely come into their own.
  
• Shoaib Akhtar's first 4 overs in the IPL looked like this: 4-0-17-5. That's before he came across Jayasuriya. Shoaib's 5th over went for 23! To be fair, Jayasuriya was also dropped of Shoaib's 1st ball.
  
• The IPL witnessed its 2nd rain reduced match last night. DDD faced 6 out of their 11 overs in powerplay mode, while KXI faced only 3 - fair?
  
• It was a battle between India's best pacers in the IPL - Sreesanth & Pathan, and India's best batsmen in the IPL - Sehwag & Gambhir. The batmen won hands down.
  
• KXI boasts of 2 of the leading wicket takers in the IPL, yet they both went wicketless. The 4 DDD wickets went to the unlikeliest of bowlers - Ramesh Powar and James Hopes. It never fails to surprise you does it?
  
• Jayawardene was going great guns to lead the chase. What did Sehwag do? Turned to Maharoof.

• The top 50 batsmen have scored 8,332 runs at an average of 32.17 with 4 100s, 50 50s, and 312 6s.
  
• Aussies contribute to 18% of the batsmen, 23% of the runs, at an average that is 21 runs higher than the overall, 75% of the 100s, 28% of the 50s, and 28% of the 6s.
  
• 47 bowlers have picked up wickets with a collective amount of 319 wickets at an average of 25.8. (Despite all this talk about bowlers taking a whack they haven't really done that badly have they now)
  
• Aussies contribute to 8.5% of the bowlers, 11% of the wickets, at 3 runs per wicket less than the overall.

So is the IPL reliant on Aussie Power? Or rather are the Aussies the backbone of the IPL?

I believe that there is no doubt that the Aussies have been the best foreign players on display. There was never any doubt on what Gilchrist, Warne, McGrath, Hayden, and Symonds would bring to the IPL.

Plus, everyone had only heard of how good David Hussey and Shaun Marsh were. Now everyone has seen them and boy can they bat!

Maybe David Barry can give a more statistical opinion on how reliant the IPL is on Aussies, however, IMO, it is very much the Indian Premier League but the Aussies are calling the shots.

• The team most reliant on Aussies is at the top of the points table.
  
• The team least reliant on Aussies is at the bottom of the table.
  
• 3 of the top 4 teams have a 50% or more reliance on the Aussies.

Food for thought that is.

Decide for yourself whether it is the Indian or the Antipodean Premier League.