IPL 7 schedule, points table, results, stats

Finally, IPL 7 saw its first super over in Match 19 between Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals on April 29. After 20 overs apiece, both teams ended at 152 runs.

And the super over wasn't without its share of magic, with a wicket falling on the first ball of the KKR innings, who batted first in the super over and managed to score 11 runs. 

With 12 runs to win from 1 over, RR too ended up with 11 runs after 6 balls, but still won as they'd scored more boundaries in their regular innings. What a match though - can't get more evenly poised than this!

Cricket, certainly, is a game of glorious uncertainties, and there's nothing better than T20 in general and IPL in particular that highlights that fact.

And would you believe this? Had someone told you that, after 13 days and 19 matches in the UAE leg of the seventh edition of the Indian Premier League, last year's champions (and also the winners of the ICC Champions League) Mumbai Indians would have not scored a single win, would you have believed them?

And then on top of it, what do you have to say about the fact that last year's laggards Kings XI Punjab have won all their matches and are sitting on top of the table?

Kings XI Punjab's dream-run continues, winning 5 matches on the trot this year so far while Mumbai Indians can't seem to do a thing right.

Here's the points table for the matches, updated at the end of every match.

Is it (almost) time to write off Kevin Pietersen’s Delhi Daredevils, who finished at the bottom of the table last year and haven't shown any considerable improvement this year? What about Shane Watson-led Rajasthan Royals, who won the first edition of Indian Premier League and never really came close to winning in any of the other five editions?

George Bailey’s Kings XI Punjab is definitely going great guns, but can it sustain the winning momentum and not choke this season when it will matter the most? Can Shikhar Dhawan inspire Sunrisers Hyderabad to finally break free of the ‘newcomers’ tag this year?

How much of Shah Rukh Khan’s magic will rub off on Gautam Gambhir’s Kolkata Knight Riders? Will Virat Kohli prove his rightful claim to Indian captaincy by winning the trophy for Royal Challengers Bangalore? 

UAE Matches

The tournament hasn't disappointed at all, with some great upsets, cliffhangers that have seen last-ball finishes, and amazing batting power-play on display in the first 15 matches. Ask any cricket pundit worth his salt, and he would tell you that the current standings couldn't have been foreseen by many. 

Did you seriously believe that after 18 matches, Kings XI Punjab would emerge table toppers and last year's winners Mumbai Indians would be languishing at the very bottom? Yes? Well then you were right (and in minority)! Last year, KXIP could not even make it to the qualifiers, winning half of their total 16 league matches and ending the tournament at No. 6 out of a total 9 teams. This year is a different story altogether. 

Nevertheless, the battle for the IPL 7 trophy is wide open at this stage, with some likely - and some very unlikely - contenders still in the reckoning. 

A close finish saw Royal Challengers Bangalore end on the losing side in their outing against KKR in Sharjah on April 24. But they had a disaster of a match against Rajasthan Royals in Abu Dhabi on April 26, something which could wreck the team morale and stall the momentum. They made the lowest team total so far of this season, 70 all-out in 15 overs. Fact: This is the third lowest IPL team total, with the lowest score of 58 all-out made by Rajasthan Royals in 2009, and the second lowest total of 67 all-out made by Kolkata Knight Riders in the first edition of IPL (2008).

The one-man demolition squad Chris Gayle finally made an appearance for RCB in the April 28 match against Kings XI Punjab, but even he couldn't lift the morale of the team, his first-over flash 20 runs notwithstanding. 

The surprise package of the tournament so far, therefore, are Kings XI Punjab, who have won all five of their matches so far. Of those, two were won chasing scores in excess of 190 against formidable opponents Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals. The third was against Sunrisers Hyderabad and was done in style too, setting a target of 194 to win and then cleaning up the opposition for a mere 121. The last but one was in Abu Dhabi when they set a target of just 126 but managed to restrict the opposition to 109 all-out. And then the last one was when they restricted RCB to 124 and easily coasted over them.

Kings XI Punjab's dominance with thebat has been impressive - the team owns the Orange Cap (for most runs scored in the tournament by an individual) and highest strike-rate. Glenn Maxwell has not scored a century so far, but came very close on all three outings, scoring 95, 89 and 95 in his first three innings. Law of averages, however, caugt up with him, and he managed just 15 off 12 balls in his fourth outing in the match against KKR on April 26, and just 6 in the match against RCB.

Lakshmipathy Balaji, sporting KXIP colours, is among the leading wicket-takers this season with eight wickets in five matches (one less than the Purple Cap holder Sunil Narine of KKR, who simply ran through the KXIP lower-middle order on April 26, scalping 3 wickets in 1 over and ending up with figures of 24 for 3).

His credentials, however, are no match for teammate Glenn Maxwell, who is by far the leading run-scorer of the season so far (300 runs). That has earned him the Pepsi Most Valuable Player title for now (152.5 points, ahead of second-placed Dwayne Smith who has 125.5 points to boast), as well as bragging rights for hitting the maximum sixes (a total of 17 in five innings).

India Matches