Updated 27 May 2025 at 10:58 IST
MI vs PBKS: Shreyas Iyer's Punjab Kings steamrolled the extremely dominant Mumbai Indians in their last league stage game of the eighteenth season of the Indian Premier League. Ricky Ponting, before the start of IPL 2025, said that he wanted to do something special with the Punjab side, and he has delivered with former KKR player Shreyas Iyer by his side. Punjab has qualified for Qualifier 1 after ten long years, and they are one of the favorites to win the title. Mumbai Indians, on the other hand, would like to believe that they lost a golden opportunity.
A team with players like Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Buraah has been corrected to Jasprit Bumrah, Suryakumar Yadav, and Trent Boult is always expected to win whenever they walk out onto the park. Mumbai Indians are eyeing their sixth IPL trophy, and a place in Qualifier 1 would have made their campaign much easier, but this is not the case anymore, as they will now play the eliminator in Chandigarh.
There is a reason that the IPL teams fight with each other on the cricket field to finish at the top 2 on the points table. If a team loses Qualifier 1, then it goes on to play Qualifier 2 against the winner of the Eliminator. Teams finishing in the top two win the IPL on most occasions. Only once in the history of the Indian Premier League has a team won the title after playing the eliminator.
David Warner's Sunrisers Hyderabad defied all odds to win the IPL trophy in 2016 after playing the eliminator. Since then, no other team has been able to replicate what the 'Orange Army' did. Hardik Pandya-led Mumbai Indians played almost all their matches in IPL 2025 as a 'virtual knockout,' and they might fancy their chances of winning the trophy even after playing the eliminator.
Punjab Kings certainly did not start as favorites in the MI vs PBKS IPL 2025 clash, considering Mumbai Indians' reputation, but they defeated the juggernauts in blue and gold by 7 wickets to give a strong statement.
Punjab will now play Qualifier 1 on May 29, 2025, against either RCB or GT at the Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium in Mullanpur.
Published 27 May 2025 at 10:06 IST