At the end of another week, the four franchises that have yet to stamp their names on the beautiful IPL trophy are in the top six on the points table. In the bottom four are five times champions each, Chennai and Mumbai, which is how they finished last season too. Unless they improve their performances and turn things around dramatically, they could well once again end up propping the others above them. Both teams have suffered from a lack of good starts with both bat and ball but it’s the lack of runs in the Powerplay and losing wickets in those six overs which is the uncomfortable truth they have to fathom.

MI and CSK’s struggles

Both teams have shown a stubbornness to change the batting order that is not producing runs for them. Ruturaj Gaikwad, who has made a name for himself with heaps of runs as an opener, had before his unfortunate injury, dropped himself to bat at the fall of the first wicket. Now, why would a skipper do that unless he is out of form and the other openers are batting superbly and are in much better form than he is in. That is not the case and so invariably when he went into bat the Chennai team had lost a wicket in the Powerplay and he had to be a bit watchful and in the process a lot of dot balls would be the result.