It came down to the final league match of IPL 2025 to determine which two teams would finish in the top two – this, after the four playoff teams were known days before – and a riveting result between Royal Challengers Bengaluru and the already eliminated Lucknow Super Giants has sealed the picture.

Back in the IPL playoffs after a decade, table-toppers Punjab Kings will play second-ranked RCB in Qualifier 1 on Thursday, while Gujarat Titans will meet Mumbai Indians in the Eliminator on Friday. Both matches will be played in Mullanpur, the home ground for PBKS, but their opponents RCB will not mind that given they’ve been unbeaten on the road in IPL 2025. 

Vital to PBKS’ return to the playoffs has been the coach-captain pair of Ricky Ponting and Shreyas Iyer who reunited at a new home after earlier working together at Delhi Capitals. The Punjab franchise has yet to achieve ultimate success in the IPL and there are two massive matches to go, but this combo believes it can deliver something special. 

After PBKS confirmed its top-two finish, Ponting praised the players but was also cautious in getting too far ahead. “I think it’s pretty obvious to see that this is a really talented team that are all on the same page and heading in the same direction,” he said.”It’s a great achievement till now but really, if you look back, we haven’t achieved anything yet. That’s the one thing I’ve been saying to the players since the moment we qualified.”

Iyer – the only captain to lead three separate IPL franchises into the playoffs – is the team’s leading run-getter with 514 at 51.40 and a strike-rate of 171.90. Next best is Prabhsimran Singh with 499 at a strike-rate of 165.78, and the rookie opener Priyansh Arya has weighed in with 424 runs at a strike-rate of 183.54. 

If the Australian import Josh Inglis can do what he did in the previous match, when he smacked 73 as PBKS cruised to 187/3 in reply to MI’s 184/7, this batting order could seriously punish RCB’s bowling as Rishabh Pant and Mitchell Marsh did in Lucknow. 

The home team will be without Marco Jansen, who has left the franchise to link up with South Africa ahead of the World Test Championship final. Kyle Jamieson will thus have to step up, and the likely return of Yuzvendra Chahal for the playoffs will be a timely boost. 

Having chased down 228 thanks to an innings for the ages from Jitesh Sharma, RCB are buoyant heading into the playoffs. Their batting has been largely dependent on Virat Kohli’s 602 runs, but only Phil Salt has crossed 300 from the rest. They will thus need Rajat Patidar, Mayank Agarwal, Liam Livingstone and Jitesh to step up on the biggest day of their season, because RCB’s bowling has shown itself to be susceptible under pressure. 

For RCB, Josh Hazlewood is expected to slot back in which means that Sri Lanka’s Nuwan Thushara would make way. 

PBKS predicted playing 11: 1 Priyansh Arya, 2 Prabhsimran Singh, 3 Josh Inglis, 4 Shreyas Iyer (capt), 5 Nehal Wadhera, 6 Shashank Singh, 7 Marcus Stoinis, 8 Azmatullah Omarzai, 9 Harpreet Brar, 10 Kyle Jamieson, 11 Arshdeep Singh, 12 Yuzvendra Chahal

RCB predicted playing 11: 1 Phil Salt, 2 Virat Kohli, 3 Rajat Patidar, 4 Mayank Agarwal, 5 Liam Livingstone, 6 Jitesh Sharma (capt/wk), 7 Romario Shepherd, 8 Krunal Pandya, 8 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 9 Yash Dayal, 11 Josh Hazlewood, 12 Suyash Sharma