The TNPL playoffs have produced seven and a half overs, and Qualifier 2 decides who plays Madurai

The TNPL playoffs have so far produced seven and a half overs of cricket. Qualifier 1 lasted 4.5 of them before the rain came back, the Eliminator a night later managed three, and both were abandoned without a ball being bowled in anger after that. One team is already in Friday’s final without having played a completed match to get there. On Wednesday night at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Trichy Grand Cholas and Vida Kovai Kings finally get the chance to settle the other place on the field.

What the weather has already decided

Madurai Panthers are in the final. They topped the league on 10 points with a net run rate of 0.548, and when Qualifier 1 against Trichy was called off they went through on that finish alone. Trichy had reached 49 for one in a match cut to 13 overs a side, with K Rajkumar unbeaten on 38 from 22 balls and the game shaping nicely, and none of it counted for anything.

The Eliminator went the same way. Tiruppur Tamizhans were 15 without loss after three overs against Kovai when the rain arrived, and Kovai advanced because they had finished third and Tiruppur fourth. Two knockout matches, two teams eliminated by a league table.

Kovai finished third with the best numbers in the tournament

Here is the oddity of Kovai’s season. Their net run rate is 1.638. Nobody else in the competition is above 0.548. They scored 1,308 runs and conceded 1,075, the best margin of any side by a wide distance, and they still had to play an Eliminator.

The reason is that they lost three of their first four, including to Madurai and Tiruppur, and then won their last three by 116 runs, five wickets and 85 runs. Four wins, three defeats, eight points, third on run rate ahead of two other teams also on eight. When Kovai have been good this season they have been overwhelming, and when they have been beaten it has usually been close. That is a decent profile to take into a knockout.

Trichy have already been on the wrong end of it

These two met once in the league, on 15 August, and Kovai won by 116 runs. Trichy lost only twice in the league, and that was the heavier of the two by a distance. The other was a two-wicket defeat to Madurai with two balls left.

Trichy will point out that the rest of their season looked nothing like that. Five wins from seven, 10 points, second in the table, and the two defeats came against Madurai by two wickets with two balls to spare and that one afternoon against Kovai. They beat Chepauk by 14 on 21 August, which was the last completed cricket either of these teams played. Five days of sitting around in the rain since then is not ideal preparation for anyone, but at least it applies to both.

If it rains again

Trichy go through. Second place beats third, the same rule that has already sent Madurai and Kovai forward, and it would mean a TNPL final contested by two teams who between them have faced 29 balls in the knockout stage.

Whoever gets there meets Madurai, who beat both of them in the league. Madurai edged Trichy by two wickets with two balls left on 5 August and beat Kovai by six wickets with three balls to spare three days later. Neither was straightforward. The final is on 28 August at the same ground, and after a week in which the weather has made more selection decisions than the captains have, Tamil Nadu cricket would settle for 40 overs and a result.

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