Preview

England's home season was launched in the most emphatic of styles at Lord's with a 10-wicket win, but now that Chris Gayle has confirmed the impression that West Indies were not entirely at the races, the value of that victory has been somewhat diminished

Delhi Daredevils are sitting pretty, relatively speaking, on top of the league. They have 14 points with a match in hand over the teams at No 2 and 3, and two games in hand over the rest

The scramble for the semi-final spots picks up pace with the Kings XI Punjab and Mumbai Indians, ranked 5th and 6th respectively, taking on each other at Centurion

Both teams remain at the bottom of the table but, while Kolkata are almost certainly out of the tournament, Bangalore have a chance of making the semi-finals. That alone should give them the edge going into the game

The race for a spot in the semi-finals heats up with only one team effectively out of contention

A mismatch is on the cards with the tournament's most impressive side, Delhi Daredevils, taking on the weakest, Kolkata Knight Riders, at the Wanderers

One team is looking to push its way up the points table after making an extremely slow start to IPL 2009; the other team is desperately trying to arrest a slide which has pushed them all the way down to seventh place

A win for Deccan Chargers will push them at least to second place, but the game carries enormous importance for Kings XI Punjab whose erratic form requires necessary correction

Chennai and Rajasthan have made superb comebacks in the middle stages, but now one team will have to give up its winning streak

Cricinfo previews the IPL game between Delhi Daredevils and Mumbai Indians to be played in East London

After the end of a draining one-day series, which Australia won 3-2, the teams sign off with a Twenty20 in Dubai

Chennai Super Kings and Kings XI Punjab have both recovered well after indifferent starts to the tournament and the outcome of their clash will yet again have a significant impact on what has become an intensely fluid points table

The two teams largely responsible for making the second season of the IPL as closely contested as it is at present clash in the first match of Thursday's double-header in Centurion

Three points separate seven teams at around the half-way stage, which makes the game between Deccan Chargers and Mumbai Indians a crucial one

These two teams have been apart for barely a month but lock horns once again as England's international season makes its earliest ever start

With seven sides involved in an intense scrap for the semi-final places, Delhi will look to get a leg-up in the table after the match against lagging Kolkata

It's a measure of the competitiveness of this year's IPL that the two teams clashing in Durban on Tuesday are five places apart in the rankings table, but only one point separates them

Monday's match at Buffalo Park in East London is between teams which had contrasting starts to the second season of the IPL but are now experiencing a change in form

The IPL assumes significance to different parties in different ways, but for India's selectors it has provided a happy headache or three

Bangalore take on Mumbai in Johannesburg as the fight for places in the middle of the league heats up