After Beating Kolkata, Mumbai Is Set for Déjà Vu

Previous results suggested that Ambati Rayadu had less than a one-in-six chance of winning the match when he faced up to the final ball of the Indian Premier League regular season. 

His team, Mumbai, needed four runs from that final delivery against the Kolkata Knight Riders. Rayadu, a 25-year-old who also keeps wicket, had struck 51 boundaries — 42 fours and 9 sixes — from the 330 previous balls he had received during the 2011 I.P.L. 

Yet still he was confident. “I was pretty relaxed, and I knew he was under pressure,” Rayudu said of bowler Lakshmipathy Balaji, who had already conceded 17 runs from the first 5 balls of the over. “I was just blank, anywhere he bowls, I thought I could hit a boundary.” Rayadu’s confidence was justified. He struck a huge six to complete a remarkable victory for Mumbai on Sunday. 

It was more than just the perfect conclusion to the regular season of a competition that still digs the long ball. 

By denying Kolkata the victory that would have given it second place in the final standings, it ensured that the coming week will have more reruns than a daytime television schedule.

Two matchups from the final day of the I.P.L. regular season, Mumbai vs. Kolkata and Bangalore vs. Chennai, will be repeated in the playoffs. And if results follow seeding, Bangalore could play Chennai for the third time in less than a week in the final Saturday in Chennai. If I.P.L. fans do not feel déjà vu, they are probably not paying enough attention. 

One reason for the repeats is happenstance, the fluke that the final two games in a 70-match schedule involved the four playoff-bound teams. The other reason is the new I.P.L. playoff structure, aimed at rewarding the best regular-season performers. In its previous three seasons, the I.P.L. had conventional semifinals — winner to the final, loser eliminated. 

This time, the first- and second-best regular season teams, Bangalore and Chennai, meet in match one Tuesday. 

The winner goes straight to the final. Seeds three and four, Mumbai and Kolkata, meet in match two. The loser goes home. Then on Friday, the loser of match one plays the winner of match two for the second spot in the Saturday final. 

Kolkata, the only one of the eight original I.P.L. franchises not to make the playoffs in the first three seasons, is happy just to be there. “There’s nothing to hang your head low about. We’ve reached the playoffs and done some very good things to get there,” said its captain, Gautam Gambhir, who denied his team would be demoralized going into the rematch Wednesday. “It is a different game in the playoffs.” 

But Kolkata has lost three times in its last five matches, while Bangalore won eight of its last nine games to knock Chennai from first place. That run began when the West Indian batsman Chris Gayle joined the team as an injury replacement. 

Gayle was devastating again on Sunday, striking 75 not out to seal Bangalore’s victory and also take the purple cap awarded to the I.P.L.’s highest run-scorer. His total of 511 runs came in only 9 innings, compared to the 14 played by most of his rivals. He has also scored at a staggering pace and struck almost twice as many sixes, 37, as his nearest pursuer. 

“I haven’t seen a player making such an impact on a season,” said Chennai coach Stephen Fleming. 

That Chennai and Mumbai, finalists last year and the teams who maintained the most continuity after the initial three-year I.P.L. player contracts ended after last season, are again in the final four is not surprising. Chennai is the one team to make it every year, while Mumbai’s progress will be welcome to the I.P.L.’s commercially driven organizers. 

Analysts at TAM Media Research calculated that television audiences were down about a quarter for the first 49 matches. They blamed cricket overkill — with the I.P.L. starting right after the World Cup — and the dilution of fan loyalty after many players changed teams. Mumbai, led by the living legend Sachin Tendulkar, has been the exception, and the one team guaranteed to sell out most stadiums. 

“People are making an extra effort to be at the ground,” Delhi chief executive Amrit Mathur told ESPN Cricinfo, offering a simple reason for the popularity of Mumbai’s matches. “It is one more chance to see a legend, to see Tendulkar.” 

There could be as many as three more chances, should Mumbai reach the final. 

Separating contenders is tough at this stage when, as Gambhir said, “One small mistake can seal the tournament.” 

But having predicted before the regular season that squad continuity, potential home-field advantage in the final and the captaincy of India’s World Cup leader, Mahindra Singh Dhoni, would make Chennai hard to beat, this column is sticking with that first thought.