The Indian Premier League makes a surprise switch to Pune on Friday where the Chennai Super Kings are now based. They begin their tenure at their new home with a clash against the other side returning to the competition in Rajasthan Royals.
Both these sides have two wins to their name in the competition and a win here will see the victors join the growing band of teams who are on six points. The losers will be stalking the leaders but with plenty of time to catch up.
Chennai Super Kings
It will be interesting to see how the Chennai Super Kings go in this match. When they built their squad and put it together they did so thinking half of their matches would be on the turning track of Chepauk and now all of a sudden they have been forced to move to Pune where the wicket tends to favour the seamers.
One thing Chennai have to do at their new ground is fine a way to restrict sides. They have had to chase 200 and the thick end of 200 in their last two matches and while they got home on the first occasion they were unable to get the job done the second time around. In truth their two wins have papered over a lot of cracks.
Rajasthan Royals
The Rajasthan Royals have either won easily or lost easily in this tournament. There has been little in between and generally it has been their batting which has defined their destiny. In the two matches they have batted poorly they have been well beaten but when they have batted well their bowlers have managed to get the job done for them.
I guess that makes perfect sense because in truth the Royals are a batting heavy side. Although Ben Stokes bowls a bit they have three overseas batsmen and only one out and out overseas bowler. There is a lot of pressure on their Indian bowlers to deliver the goods but to be fair they have done exactly that in the main so far.
Team News
Suresh Raina missed the previous match but there are signs that he is fit to return here. MS Dhoni was hampered in the last game but he batted on the eve of the match so should be fine. David Willey was seen bowling extensively so he could come in for a spinner should Chennai choose.
Rajasthan Royals will decide whether Jofra Archer is fit for action now. If he is it is a pretty simple decision to replace Ben Laughlin with him. A less easier decision would be whether to play Heinrich Klaasen for D’Arcy Short and push Rahul Tripathi up to open.
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Betting
I’m going to edge on the side of caution in terms of picking the winner of the match here until we’ve seen how the ground is playing dimensions wise and how the pitch is but there is a quote from Mike Hussey that says there is a fair bit of grass on the pitch which makes me think this will be a high scoring match.
All three of Chennai’s matches have been high scoring and they have scored 21, 23 and 23 in terms of boundaries and anything in that ball park when they bat here will surely give the over 38.5 boundaries line every chance of landing. Both sides have struggled to contain sides early on with the ball and if both teams get away there are finishers all over to bump up the boundary count especially if plenty of seam is sent down. This isn’t the biggest ground so I like over 38.5 boundaries to land pretty comfortably here.
Tips
WON – Back Over 38.5 boundaries for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with William Hill
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