Road to the playoffs

In truth, sealing the playoffs themselves was fairly routine when it came down to it in a top-heavy year in the IPL. None of the fireworks and drama of RCB’s run last year, when they needed to win six in a row. RCB were comfortable with 8 points after seven games, and from there, they won four matches in a row to put qualification beyond doubt.

Punjab’s run was slightly more complicated, as they entered the IPL’s resumption in a bit of a battle against Delhi Capitals and Mumbai Indians. However, Delhi’s faltering form in the late season meant they too qualified with a couple of games to spare, meaning the matches against those two teams that once looked like season-defining contests became more like a footnote.

Punjab put away MI in their final game to go top of the table.

Interestingly, PBKS and RCB had the exact same record for the first six matches of their season — WWLWLW. They were never more than two points apart from each other (and that only for one match), and finished tied on 17 points, with PBKS’ net-run-rate only 0.071 points higher. Locked arm-in-arm.

PBKS vs RCB head-to-head

You thought that was tight? Take a look at their head-to-head.

In 35 games going all the way back to 2008, there is very little to separate them. Punjab have won 18 times, RCB have won 17 times. It’s been that sort of rivalry between these two teams.

This year, the teams played twice in the space of three days, first in Bangalore then in Mullanpur. Punjab won the first game, a rain-shortened affair, but would fall prey to RCB’s relentless away charge less than 40 hours later, becoming one of their seven victims in their perfect record on the road.

So who are the favourites?

Considering all that, there is truly very little to keep these two teams clad in red apart, down to the lions present in their emblems.

On season performance and head-to-head, both have shown themselves to be arguably the best team in the competition, and capable of beating each other. Punjab have the home advantage in Mullanpur, but that has mattered very little to RCB. The Bengaluru team do have more playoff experience than their rivals, who last made this stage in 2014, but they themselves haven’t played in Qualifier 1 since 2016. To boot, the opposing captain is the defending champion of the IPL.

That might prove to be the key ingredient in all of this. Make no mistake — these two teams are stacked with quality, hardly any weaknesses, and an excellent idea of what they are about with both bat and ball. When it comes to making a difference, how their captains perform and think under pressure could settle it. Rajat Patidar is in his first year on the job, but Shreyas Iyer has led two different teams to IPL finals, and won it all only a year ago.

He’s already the only man to captain two different teams to the IPL final. Would you bet against him to make it three out of three? The big difference between these two teams, really the only difference, and therefore the one that might make Punjab just the slightest favourites.