IPL History: Top 3 teams with the most number of final appearances
After 59 games and eight teams, we are finally down to one game and two teams in the 12th edition of Indian Premier League (IPL). For the fourth time in this season, Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings will face each other tonight. However, the stakes will be higher this time, since the winner of this clash will be crowned IPL 2019 Champions.
Among the original eight franchises, Delhi Capitals are the only team who are yet to reach an IPL final. Meanwhile, Rajasthan Royals (2008), Kings XI Punjab (2014), Deccan Chargers (2009), and Rising Pune Supergiant (2017) have played an IPL final only once.
Kolkata Knight Riders (2012, 2014) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (2016, 2018) have reached the finals twice. KKR had won both of their finals under the leadership of Gautam Gambhir while SRH had won one (2016) and lost one (2018) IPL final.
Ahead of the tonight's final between MI and CSK, let us look at top three teams who have reached the IPL finals the most number of times.
#3 Royal Challengers Bangalore (3)
After finishing seventh in the IPL Points Table in the inaugural season, Royal Challengers Bangalore made a comeback in the second season by reaching the finals. However, they lost to now-defunct Deccan Chargers in that final by a small margin of six runs.
RCB reached their second IPL final in the 2011 season as they once again failed to clear the final hurdle. Then for four consecutive seasons (2012-2015), they were unable to reach the IPL final. In those four seasons, they qualified for the playoffs only once.
After a long wait, they finally made it to the finals of IPL during the 2016 season. However, the result was the same as they once again lost an IPL final. After the 2016 season, they are yet to finish in the top four in the points table. In particular, they had finished at the bottom of the points table twice (2017, 2019) in this period.