IPL 2025: LSG stand between RCB and a perfect away record

Royal Challengers Bengaluru need one more win to seal their playoff spot, and it'll be quite poetic if it comes in Lucknow. Not just because it's a city that lives by the motto of making visitors smile, but also because RCB's success this season has largely been built away from home, with six wins out of six. A seventh will complete their perfect run on the road and deliver them into knockouts in their first season under a new captain.

For Lucknow Super Giants, the equation isn't so simple. Currently on 10 points in 11 games, with three more to play, they are in must-win territory, given 14 points won't be enough to get teams through this season. Even if LSG win all their matches, they would need to depend on other results to go their way. It's hardly a consolation that two of their remaining three games are at home, where they've struggled to adapt, as three losses in five matches would suggest.

While RCB finally seem to have found the middle order and bowling to win matches as a unit, LSG appear to have lost their core strengths from last season and are coming off three back-to-back defeats. Their fast bowling, in particular, which won them games single-handedly last year, has been