3 min readMay 19, 2026 12:53 PM IST
IPL 2026 Playoff Qualification Scenarios: Rajasthan Royals face Lucknow Super Giants in their penultimate league game of the 2026 Indian Premier League on Tuesday. RR and Kolkata Knight Riders are the only teams among the contenders for the final playoff spot who have two games left this season and so a victory for the Royals could have huge repurcussions on the race for the top four.
RR are sitting on 12 points in 12 matches with six wins and defeats each. They are one of three teams on 12 points, the other two being Chennai Super Kings and Delhi Capitals. However, they are placed above both sides on fifth due to their net run rate of 0.027. A victory for RR over LSG today would mean that they will jump up to 14 points and thus take fourth place, pushing Punjab Kings down to fifth. LSG, meanwhile, have no bone in this fight. Sitting last with eight points in 12 matches, they are well and truly out of the race.
Here is how a victory for RR would affect the other teams still in the race for a final playoff spot:
Punjab Kings (13 points in 13 matches): If RR beat LSG, PBKS will go down to fifth place which would mark an extraordinary fall for a side that looked invincible in the first half of the league stage. Punjab looked set to become the first team to reach the playoffs at the halfway mark of the league stage itself, having not lost a single one of their first seven matches. However, they have only lost games ever since and ended up matching the number of wins they had in that first half with a sixth consecutive defeat in their previous match. With just one game left for them this season, PBKS will have to win that match and then hope that RR don’t win their final game of the season.
Chennai Super Kings (12 points in 13 matches): If RR beat LSG, CSK will have to win their final game of the season by a huge margin to overturn the NRR deficit they have with the Royals. They will then have to hope that PBKS lose their final match of the season and that KKR or DC win their final game of the season by a small enough margin that CSK won’t be overtaken on NRR.
Delhi Capitals (12 points in 13 matches): If RR beat LSG, DC simply have to win their final game of the season and hope for favourable results from matches involving CSK and PBKS and RR’s final game. Fortunately for them, they can make sure that one of those rivals of the final playoff spot don’t earn any points as their last match of the season is against KKR themselves.
Kolkata Knight Riders (11 points in 12 matches): If RR beat LSG, KKR will have beat DC in their final league match of the season and then hope that RR don’t win their final match as well. If that happen, KKR will quite simply be mathematically ruled out as they can only reach a maximum of 15 points while RR winning their last game would put them on 16. They also need favourable results in the matches involving CSK and PBKS.
