The new entrant Pune Warriors had a dream start in IPL 2011. Yuvraj Singh enjoyed his first win as a captain of Pune against his ex-team Punjab. Gilchrist's Punjab was definitely stronger than Pune on paper, but the way Pune performed was extraordinarily classic.
Pune carried their winning form to the next game, defeating the co-debutant Kochi by 4 wickets. The team lost their winning momentum after that and lost successively 6 following matches. Now as only 6 more matches left for Pune, they have no other option than to win at least 5 if they want to be in race. Chennai currently have 10 points, however; they cannot be 100% sure of qualification as teams like Bangalore (9 points) and Kochi (8 points) are not very far behind to replace them in the point table. Bangalore are going very well at the moment by winning last 3 matches successively . Mumbai Indians and Kolkata are at top form and I will be more than surprise if they don't make to the semis. Like Chennai, Rajasthan's current 3rd position is also in threat by Bangalore and Kochi.
So currently, the tug-of-war for top 4 positions seem to exist more likely among Mumbai, Kolkata, Rajasthan, Chennai, Bangalore and Kochi. As Pune's upcoming matches are against stronger teams in tough conditions, I am skeptical if they can get 4-5 wins out of 6 matches. But, we can expect miracles in T20. By the way, Punjab is still a strong candidate for top 4 because they have more matches than any other team left to play. Currently they have 6 points from 7 matches.
The position of all IPL teams till 3 May 2011 look like this.
