IPL-2022 Play-Offs Decided: RCB Gets The 4th Spot With GT On Top And RR, LSG 2nd And 3rd!

It has turned out the way I’d analyzed in an earlier post that either RCB or DC is going to fill up the only vacant 4^th spot in the play-offs as MI defeats DC at the Wankhede tonight by 5 wickets. In fact, the five-time Champs Mumbai, coming to its true potential much too late with Ishan, Bumrah and to some extent Rohit firing with the batting mainstay of Tilak Varma and Suryakumar Yadav the latter being sorely missed in the last few matches due to injury, has become the virtual eliminator of the tournament: they first threw CSK out of contention; then they nearly did the same to SRH much earlier than yesterday when Hyderabad was finally ousted as RCB defeated GT by 8 wickets; and today they ousted a very deserving Delhi who needed only a win to secure a berth based on its much better net run-rate than Bangalore. Opting to field first Mumbai restricted Delhi to 159/7 in 20 overs thanks to superb bowling by Jasprit Bumrah who took 3 for just 25 in 4 overs. Delhi has been badly missing its opener Prithvi Shaw for the last few matches as he was suspected to be suffering from typhoid; Shaw came back today, but could not do much as David Warner failed in this crunch game. It was due to cameos by Rishabh Pant and Rovman Powell that enabled Delhi to post a modest target of 160 runs. With tonight’s convincing win notwithstanding MI remains at the bottom of the table locked on 8 points each with CSK, but lower down due to its lesser net run-rate. Still, some consolation for the last three performances indeed.

Anyhow, the play-off games have been decided now: Gujarat to take on Rajasthan in Qualifier-1 on 24^th May and Lucknow to take on RCB in the Eliminator on 25^thMay, both matches to be played at the Eden Gardens Kolkata. The winner of Qualifier-1 will enter the Final straightaway while the loser will wait to meet the winner of the Eliminator. Qualifier-2 between the loser of Qualifer-1 and the winner of the Eliminator on 27^th May and the IPL-2022 Final on 29^th May are to be played at the Narendra Modi stadium in Ahmedabad. Immediately after this cricket extravaganza South Africa is to tour India from the first week of June to play five T20 International matches.

It’s been indeed good to see that the last few matches since my ‘dubious’ view have been very tough and fought competitively, giving no scope for doubt to true cricket lovers. In fact, tonight Tim David (34 in just 11 balls) again delivered massive hits before getting out perhaps due to rush of blood one more time, but making the victory quite easy at the end. The last league match between Punjab and Hyderabad tomorrow is now inconsequential, it may just change the order of the ousted teams in the points table. In all, the 15^th edition of the IPL has been a rather absorbing affair with crowds let in and steadily swelling for the first time since the pandemic.

The VIP Brat: A Study in Contrast!

Here we’re talking about only two compartments inside a particular AC 2-Tier coach in a particular daily train under the Indian Railways that departs a particular originating station at around noontime and reaches the destination city early morning the next day. The train is popular because it is superfast and always on time. That fateful noon too, the train was ready for boarding about one hour before departure. We cut to the inside of that particular coach having those two compartments for our contrasting study. Two elderly couples were in a state of considerable distress. One of them, both technically senior citizens, had been allotted two upper berths and the husband was at his wits end how to proceed, because his wife was being taken for check-up after surgeries in both of her knees—she could hardly walk and her climbing up the berth was a sheer impossibility. The husband was also on the wrong side of the sixties, but he thought he could manage the climbing once he managed a ...

Mitali: The Trauma of Losing a Sibling

Maybe I lied to her when I used to reassure her that she was going to be alright and was going to resume her life in some measure of normalcy in the future years; maybe all my gestures/expressions were false when I used to run my fingers across her forehead or embrace her on occasions when she was able to move around a bit; and maybe all my exhibitions of love care and responsibility were exposed as superficial when I failed to turn up in Delhi where she along with my mother were treated during September-October, 2022 (my mother Urmila Chakravarty was also diagnosed with dental cancer the same month the same year as she was) and when all the members of my parental family and the in-laws converged. Since that fateful day in August, 2022 when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer to that disastrous day of March 6, 2025—the day my younger blood sister Mitali (Mainu) Chakravarty Sarma (November 2, 1963—March 6, 2025) passed away in the wee hours in a hospital in Guwahati after giving a bra...

Release of Book 'Randomized: A Dozen Short Stories'!

The fourth collection of stories titled 'Randomized: A Dozen Short Stories' by Chinmay Chakravarty has been released on Amazon KDP just now! This collection, short stories in a lighter vein plus with mild satire like the previous collections, has been published in both the E-book and Paperback formats. The links are given below: International: Click Here ! India: Click Here ! Other collections of short stories by the same author: The Cheerless Chauffeur and Other Tales(2021)--Notion Press. Funny and Fishy Tales(2022)--KDP. The Weirdos(2022)--Ukiyoto Publishing. All books of the author are available on Goodreads, apart from Amazon and other outlets! Have a look!