Three TNPL teams finished on eight points, and Nellai missed the playoffs by 0.133
Kovai Kings, Tiruppur Tamizhans and Nellai Royal Kings all finished the TNPL league stage on eight points, and net run rate sent two of them through. Qualifier 1 between Madurai Panthers and Trichy Grand Cholas starts at 7.30pm IST on Sunday in Chennai.
Aug 23, 2026
SKM Salem Spartans went into the last day of the TNPL league stage having lost six matches out of six. They beat iDream Tiruppur Tamizhans by 45 runs, and it still was not enough to knock Tiruppur out of the playoffs. That is the sort of week it has been at the bottom of this table, and the sort of finish that left three teams on eight points fighting over two places on net run rate.
Three teams on eight points, two of them through
Kovai Kings, Tiruppur and Nellai Royal Kings all finished with four wins from seven and eight points. Only the first two are still playing.
Kovai were never really in danger. Their net run rate of 1.638 is the best in the competition by a distance, built on a 116-run win over Trichy Grand Cholas on 15 August and an 85-run DLS win over Dindigul Dragons on 21 August. Third place on the table understates how comfortably they got there.
The other spot came down to 0.133 of a run. Tiruppur finished on minus 0.013, Nellai on minus 0.146, and the gap opened on the final day when Madurai Panthers beat Nellai by 72 runs in the 28th match. Nellai had won two of their previous three and had every reason to think they were in. A 72-run defeat is a bad way to find out otherwise.
Tiruppur, meanwhile, lost to the bottom side on the same day and qualified anyway. They will not care much this morning.
Qualifier 1: Madurai Panthers vs Trichy Grand Cholas
The top two both finished on 10 points from seven matches, five wins each, separated only by net run rate. Madurai took first place at 0.548 to Trichy’s 0.095, which earns them the double chance: lose on Sunday and they play again on Wednesday.
They have met once already this season, in the second match of the tournament on 5 August, and Madurai won it by two wickets with two balls to spare. Neither side has looked especially settled since. Madurai lost to Chepauk Super Gillies on 14 August and to Tiruppur on 20 August before finishing with the win over Nellai. Trichy won three in a row in the middle of the tournament, lost heavily to Kovai, and then took their last two, edging Chepauk by 14 runs on 21 August to lock in second.
Qualifier 1 starts at 7.30pm IST on Sunday, 23 August at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. The winner goes straight to the final on 28 August.
The rest of the week
Tiruppur play Kovai Kings in the Eliminator on Monday, 24 August, and the loser is out. The winner meets whoever loses Qualifier 1, in Qualifier 2 on Wednesday, 26 August. All four playoff matches are in Chennai, and the final is on Friday, 28 August.
Chepauk Super Gillies, who have won this thing four times, finished sixth on six points and are watching the rest of it from home. Dindigul took four points, and Salem finished on two, with that final-day win over Tiruppur the only one they managed all season.
What to watch for
Madurai against Trichy is the tie the table says is closest, and the one meeting between them went to the last over. Kovai are the team nobody in the top two will want to see in a final, because a net run rate of 1.638 across seven matches is not an accident. They have simply been beating sides by a lot and losing to them narrowly, which is the profile of a team that turns up well in a knockout or goes out in one.