The Subrata Roy Sahara stadium in Pune was the venue of the battle for the wooden spoon as the Pepsi IPL 2013 entered its last day of the League stages. The ignominy of that tag went to the Delhi Daredevils, who were humbled by the Pune Warriors by 38 runs in a virtual no contest, thus suffering their 6th defeat on the trot.

The two captains Aaron Finch for PWI and Mahela Jayawardene for DD turned out for the toss one final time in this edition and the spin of the coin favoured the Pune Warriors India, who opted to bat first. Pune brought back Ashok Dinda for Ishwar Pandey while Delhi Daredevils brought Bharat Chipli and Shahbaz Nadeem for Unmukt Chand and Ashish Nehra.

Pune got off to a good start with Robin Uthappa in particular playing a wide range of shots early on in his innings. His dismissal for 24 in the sixth over of the game saw his opening partner Aaron Finch take up the task of accelerating the pace of the innings. Finch raced to a half century off 31 balls, but the Pune Warriors then lost Finch and Yuvraj in a matter of a couple of overs.

Luke Wright and Angelo Mathews nudged the ball around for a couple of overs before really getting into Umesh Yadav. Yadav's final over went for 24 runs and he ended with expensive figures of 1-52 from his four overs. Luke Wright was dismissed in the last over of the innings for a 23-ball 44, while Angelo Mathews remained unbeaten on 30 as the Pune Warriors ended on 172/5.

The Delhi Daredevils lost David Warner early on to Wayne Parnell and Mahela Jayawardene soon followed him after scoring 14, as Delhi reached 40/2 after 5 overs. Pune's bowlers kept the pressure up with some tight bowling and it got to the Delhi batsmen as both Sehwag and Chipli fell off successive deliveries to Ali Murtaza, who had figures of 3-0-5-3 at this stage.

Ben Rohrer too fell cheaply but CM Gautam and Irfan Pathan took Delhi from 64/5 to 118/5 before Delhi again lost two wickets in the same over, as both Gautam and Morne Morkel fell to Angelo Mathews. Pathan fell soon after for 24, but Delhi were never really in the hunt, and their innings folded at 134-9, 38 runs short of Pune's total. Luke Wright was named Man-of the Match for his aggressive innings with the bat.

Pune's victory helped them go past the Daredevils on the points table, and avoid the wooden spoon tag this time round (they held the tag in the 2012 edition of the IPL). Delhi ended the competition with only three wins, the last of which came on 1 May, and they had a run of 6 consecutive losses in the competition on two separate occasions.

Teams:

PWI: A Finch(c), R Uthappa(wk), L Wright, Y Singh, A Mathews, M Pandey, R Gomes, W Parnel, B Kumar, A Murtaza,  A Dinda.

DD:  V Sehwag, M Jayawardene(c), David Warner, B Rohrer, B Chipli, CM Gautham(wk),  I Pathan, S Kaul, M Morkel, S Nadeem, U Yadav.

Mini Scorecard:

Pune Warriors India 172-5 (20 overs, 8.6rpo)

A Finch 52(34) S Kaul 2-27

L Wright 44(23) S Nadeem 1-21

Delhi Daredevils  134-9(20 overs, 6.7rpo)

CM Gautham 30(24) A Mathews 3-14

I Pathan 24(28) A Murtaza 3-15

PWI win by 38 runs

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As the race for the last spot in the play-offs heats up, the bottom-most teams in the other half of the table prepare to lock horns at the Subrata Roy Sahara stadium in Pune in a match that would decide which team ends the competition with the disrepute of becoming the first team to end at the bottom position in two editions of the game. Delhi Daredevils would want to come out on top to break their dismal run of 5 consecutive losses while the Pune Warriors would want to give their fans something to cheer about in the last match at the stadium this year.

In a swim or sink tie, Punjab held their nerve to down Delhi on a greenish pitch at the tranquil Dharamshala and with it hang on to their Play-offs chances by the thinnest of threads. Kings XI's batting could be summed up as- explosion 1.0, stupor and explosion 2.0. David Miller, transforming the sparks created by Adam Gilchrist and Shaun Marsh into raging flames, struck in the 'V' again to propel Punjab to 171. In response,Delhi made a fist of the challenge before eventually falling shy by 7 runs.

The biggest talking point of the day though was the shocking Rs 40 crore match fixing scam involving three Rajasthan players- S Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan. Rumours are rife that these match fixing trails lead to the doorstep of the Mumbai underworld.

The Kings XI head into a crucial encounter on Thursday against the Delhi Daredevils at the HPCA Stadium in Dharmsala with a slim but definite chance of still making it to the last four in the competition. KKR's loss to the Pune Warriors on Wednesday afternoon means that the battle for the fourth position of the Play-offs is now a three way contest between the Royal Challengers Bangalore, Sunrisers Hyderabad, and Kings XI Punjab.

To keep their chances alive, Kings XI would hope not just for a win, but preferably a big one to increase their net run rate (+0.046) which is currently above SRH's (-0.117) but below RCB's (+0.387).

An exceptional 99 from 58 balls by the wolf in sheep's clothing Virat Kohli and a 5-fer from Jaidev Unadkt saw helped the Royal Challengers Bangalore edge out the Delhi Daredevils by 4 runs in a thrilling encounter at the Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi and thereby keep their hopes of a play-off berth very much alive.

The win for the Royal Challengers sees them maintain the traffic jam on 16 points, and gives them hope of landing a top 4 berth, while for Delhi it was another chapter in what has been a very disappointing season as they notched up defeat no.10.

The Rajasthan Royals continued to be perfect performers on home territory, routing the beleaguered Delhi Daredevils by 9 wickets under the hot Jaipur sun. A battling 64 from 40 balls from Ben Rohrer helped Delhi reach a competitive 154-4 in their 20 overs, but Rajasthan cruised to victory thanks to a pair of half-centuries from their openers, Rahul Dravid and Ajinkya Rahane. The win takes Rajasthan up to 2nd place in the IPL standings for a couple of hours at the very least.

Two true legends of the sport in Rahul Dravid and Mahela Jayawardene walked out for the toss which went in favour of the Delhi Daredevils, who elected to bat first. Delhi came up with six changes leaving out Jeevan Mendis, Johan Botha, Unmukt Chand, Irfan Pathan, Ashish Nehra and Shahbaz Nadeem and brought in Ben Rohrer, Morne Morkel, Ajit Agarkar, Siddarth Kaul, Pawan Negi and keeper CM Gautam. Rajasthan on the other hand made just a couple of changes bringing in 40+ debutant Pravin Tambe and Shaun Tait in the team for Ajit Chandila and Kevon Cooper.

The Sunrisers Hyderabad have taken the old adage of 'My Home is My Castle' to heart, picking up their 5th win of the season at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Uppal by crushing a very poor Delhi Daredevils side by 6 wickets. Batting first on winning the toss, Delhi were bowled out for an appalling score of just 80, and the Sunrisers helped their net run rate situation by chasing down the target in under 14 overs to secure an easy win.

The two Sri Lankan players, Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene turned out for the toss and it was the Delhi Daredevils who won it and elected to bat first. For DD, Jeevan Mendis got a game in place of Ben Rohrer while Johan Botha came in for Morne Morkel. SH meanwhile stuck with their winning combination that played in the previous match.