The Mumbai Indians (MI) have qualified for the playoffs of IPL 2025. But things are not easy for them since their defeat against Punjab Kings (PBKS) on Monday in their final league game. Due to this loss, MI will be placed 4th in the points table. They had a chance to finish in top two if they would have defeated Punjab Kings in Jaipur, but as things went against them, they will now play Eliminator against the team that finishes third.
Punjab Kings (PBKS) are currently at the top of the table. MI will feature in the Eliminator, where they will play against either Gujarat Titans (GT) or Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). Who MI will be playing against in that Eliminator match will be determined by the outcome of the RCB vs Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) match on Tuesday.
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There Is Only One Team Which Has Won IPL After Ending in the Eliminator
Despite MI being in the playoffs, their hopes of winning a sixth IPL title are slim. That's because in the history of the IPL, only one team has won the title after being in the Eliminator position, and that was Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in 2016, when David Warner was their captain.
In IPL 2016, SRH finished 3rd in the league stage. They played the Eliminator with Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and won. Then they played Qualifier 2 against Gujarat Lions (GL). GL lost to RCB in Qualifier 1, so they played SRH to advance to the final.
defeated Gujarat Lions and reached it to the final against Virat Kohli’s RCB, who were in great form and were close to winning their first title. But in the final, the SRH bowlers kept their cool and stopped the RCB batters, helping SRH win the trophy.
This made SRH the first and, to date, the sole team in IPL history to have won the title after having featured in the Eliminator round. No other team has managed to do this since. Will Mumbai Indians be the second team to do so? Only time will tell.
