Rain lashes Viru's boys, sends Riders crashing out

A morose Delhi Daredevils dressing room sat and watched in silence as rain lashed the Ferozeshah Kotla on Thursday, washing out their all-important clash with the Kolkata Knight Riders. Delhi, who needed to win both this game and the next one against Mumbai to stand a strong chance of making it to the semi-final, have now split points with Kolkata, which has further complicated their scenario and made them dependent on the results of some of the other semi-final contenders to get into the last four. Intermittent drizzle late in the evening made the work of the Kotla ground-staff very difficult. Their best efforts couldn't get the stage ready for the show. The umpires called off the match after an inspection at 10pm. However, match referee Clive Lloyd expressed his unhappiness at the condition of the super soppers used to flush out the water from the outfield. He said that only one of the three soppers was working efficiently. Meanwhile, Kolkata Knight Riders, after this game, are definitely out of the semifinal race with 11 points from 13 games, which means they can at best finish with 13 points. Both Team Hyderabad and the Royal Challengers Bangalore are already out of the race. With Team Jaipur already through with 18 points, and Team Mohali also assured of a place with 16 points and three games to go, that still leaves Delhi (13 points after this washout from 13 games), Mumbai Indians (12 points from 11 games) and Team Chennai (14 points from 12 games) jostling for the other two semi-final spots. Mumbai now look the strongest out of these three to make it to the semis first. They have three games to play, and Delhi will be hoping and praying they lose at least two out of those three. If Mumbai wins two of their remaining games, they'll be out of reach of Delhi. That means Delhi will have to beat them on Saturday and hope for Mumbai to lose another game, either against Team Jaipur or the Bangalore Royal Challengers, and for Chennai to lose their remaining games. In such a scenario, Delhi will finish with 15 points, while Mumbai and Chennai will have 14. So Delhi will become the third semi-finalist, while Mumbai and Chennai jostle it out (in terms of net run rate) for the fourth slot. The equation for Chennai is now quite simple: they need to win either against Team Jaipur or Team Hyderabad to be sure of a spot in the semis. In short, it's not curtains for Delhi yet, but they'll have to closely follow the fortunes of the competition and hope for the best.