Amid fears that the controversy surrounding three players had dampened the enthusiasm of fans for Pepsi IPL 2013, a packed house at the Rajiv Gandhi International stadium saw the Sunrisers rise, sink and then rise again when it really mattered the most to beat the Knights by 5 wickets - a result ensured Sunrisers' qualification to the Play-offs besides exiting the spirited RCB, who were glued to this fourth Play-offs berth deciding battle, after out-batting Chennai yesterday night . At 89/0, in pursuit of 131, it was Sunrisers' game to lose. They almost lost the plot, slumping to 112-5 before Darren Sammy sealed the deal in typical Caribbean style!

Hyderabad enjoyed a rollicking start to the chase thanks to a flurry of fours. The diminutive Parthiv Patel, sporting the 'chief-aggressor tag', gave Yusuf Pathan a taste of his own medicine with full-blooded cuts. Soon after, Shikhar Dhawan stole the tag with breathtaking stroke-play- the one that stood out was the majestic six off Jacques Kallis over cover with both feet up in the air, reminiscent of Sanath Jayasuriya.

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

The Mumbai Indians take on last year's runners-up the Chennai Super Kings in the first qualifier at the Feroz Shah Kotla on Tuesday as the two heavyweights in this year’s competition try to gain entry into the Final at the first attempt. The Mumbai Indians have emerged victorious in both the fixtures between these two sides in the league stages and would be very confident of completing a treble over the two-time champions. Chennai, on the other hand, would also go all guns blazing to enter the finals for the 4th consecutive time. A riveting encounter is on the cards.

Virat Kohli's Royal Challengers Bangalore found themselves at the sorry and sour end of a number of their previous games in this competition already and their campaign needed nothing less than a victory to ensure they qualified to the next stage of the competition. A victory would still have not guaranteed RCB a definite place in the play-offs as they would then have to wait for the result of the Sunrisers -Kolkata game on Sunday. The Super Kings went into this game sitting pretty at the top of the table and only a crushing defeat could have seen them lose that spot.

Rain affected a game for the first time in this season's Indian Premier League and forced the game between the RCB and CSK to be reduced to an 8-over-a-side contest. With the toss finally happening at 10:40 pm, the game finally got underway. The Chennai Super Kings won the toss and decided to bowl first in a game described by MS Dhoni as "a death over game from the beginning".

Match 69 of the Indian Premier League could have held a great deal of importance for the Kings XI Punjab till the result of last night's game between the Sunrisers Hyderabad and the Rajasthan Royals came in. With Sunrisers' victory however, the deal was sealed for the Kings XI as far as a spot in the Play-offs was concerned. While the Kings XI played out a dead-rubber, their opponents, the Mumbai Indians who are currently at the top of the table, headed into the game hoping to secure a victory, and thereby maintain the more comfortable first-spot in the points table at the end of the league stage.

Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit Sharma won the toss and decided to field first. Mumbai made two changes to their side, bringing in debutant Nathan Coulter- Nile for Mitchell Johnson while Rishi Dhawan came in for Pragyan Ojha.  Adam Gilchrist, playing his final IPL game, said that Dharamsala was one of his favorite places to play cricket at, and thanked the fans for the support he was given over the years during his IPL career. Kings XI made one change, bringing in Gurkeerat Mann for the injured R Sathish.

Day 2 saw more developments in the spot-fixing scandal that has come up during the on-going sixth season of the Indian Premier League. Early in the day, the BCCI decided to suspend the three Rajasthan Royals players, pending an inquiry, after a meeting of the IPL Governing Council.

N Srinivasan, President of the BCCI was firm in maintaining though that the IPL brand was still as strong as before:  "I am also equally sad, as all my colleagues are in the BCCI, that a player who played Tests for India is involved. But that does mean that the entire game is corrupt. I do not agree at all. I do not agree the IPL cannot continue. We will take all steps to root out this kind of corruption. To make a sweeping statement the IPL is untenable, I do not agree" Mr. Srinivasan was quoted saying.