Sunday’s doubleheader marked the beginning of the season for all of the teams in the Indian Premier League. After today’s games, all teams have played one game each and thus, we have our first clear picture of the points table as the Round 1 of the Indian Premier League has ended.
The day of the Royals
Rajasthan Royals and Royal Challengers Bangalore both won their opening games today. In the first game, Rajasthan Royals defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad by a huge margin of 72 runs. With this, Rajasthan have taken the first spot on the points table, pushing Lucknow Super Giants to the second spot. For Rajasthan, Jos Buttler, captain Sanju Samson, and Yashasvi Jaiswal shined with the bat as they scored a fifty each to put Rajasthan on top. The remaining damage was done by Yuzvendra Chahal and Trent Boult in the bowling who took 4 and 2 wickets respectively.
In the second game, Royal Challengers Bangalore completed a comfortable victory over Rohit Sharma’s Mumbai Indians. Batting first, Mumbai managed to put up a score of 171 despite losing early wickets. Tilak Varma was the star of the show as he scored 86 runs off 44 balls. In reply, RCB completed the chase in just 16.2 overs, thanks to a quickfire 73 by captain Faf du Plessis and an unbeaten 82 by Virat Kohli. The opening duo of Faf and Kohli put up 148 runs for the opening wicket to set up a comfortable chase. Kohli hit a six over long-on off the final delivery to steer RCB home in style. With this victory, RCB have taken the third spot on the points table, and have pushed Gujarat Titans to the fourth spot. Punjab Kings currently rank fifth in the points table.
NRR matters
As the first round of matches are completed, the top 5 teams have 2 points each whereas the bottom 5 have 0 points each. The only point of difference between the teams in both of the categories is the Net Run Rate (NRR). Teams want to carry a good NRR as it plays a huge role in playoff qualifications under close circumstances.
Here’s the updated points table after RCB vs MI Match 5:
| Rank | Teams | Matches | Won | Lost | No Results | Points | NRR |
| 1. | Rajasthan Royals | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3.600 |
| 2. | Lucknow Super Giants | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | +2.500 |
| 3. | Royal Challengers Bangalore | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | +1.981 |
| 4. | Gujarat Titans | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | +0514 |
| 5. | Punjab Kings | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | +0.438 |
| 6. | Kolkata Knight Riders | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | -0.438 |
| 7. | Chennai Super Kings | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | -0.514 |
| 8. | Mumbai Indians | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | -1.981 |
| 9. | Delhi Capitals | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | -2.500 |
| 10. | Sunrisers Hyderabad | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -3.600 |
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