The second match of the IPL 2021 season sees the last two beaten Indian Premier League finalists battling it out in their opening game of the new campaign as the Chennai Super Kings take on the Delhi Capitals in Mumbai.
These two sides had very different campaigns in the UAE last term. Chennai spent most of it propping up the table while Delhi had their best season to date. Both teams will be looking to get off to a flyer here.
Chennai Super Kings
It will be interesting to see how the Chennai Super Kings tackle this season because for the second campaign in a row they look to have built a squad at the auction for the slower, lower pitches of the Chennai ground only to be told they won’t be playing a single match there. The Super Kings had issues anyway because they looked past it last term. Their experienced players had gone way beyond their peak and needed replacing.
Shane Watson and Imran Tahir are things of the past, from the first XI at least, but Suresh Raina, who missed last season, MS Dhoni and Dwayne Bravo are still around and will all need to contribute if Chennai are to get back in the play-offs. Whatever happens this season the Super Kings need to find some young blood and not only find them but introduce them into the side else they face the prospect of getting left behind. Players like Ruturaj Gaikwad need to be given the chance to flourish.
Delhi Capitals
The Delhi Capitals don’t need to change a whole lot from what they did last season. They will get better the longer the season goes on because their South African bowlers start the campaign in quarantine but when you look down the squads for this tournament, there aren’t many who look better than Delhi. They looked good last term but the work they did in the auction and close season has made them look even stronger.
Largely it is all about keeping key players fit and their big players hitting form and sustaining it for a couple of months. The likes of Prithvi Shaw, Rishabh Pant, Marcus Stoinis and Axar Patel have all been in great form for other franchises or their country this winter and if they can keep that form to last another seven weeks the Capitals will be right in the mix. What’s more is they look ideally suited to this Wankhede ground.
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Key Men
There is talk that Moeen Ali is going to open the batting for the Chennai Super Kings this year as he does for his side over in England in Worcestershire. If he can get a few clean hits away in this match not only could it help the Super Kings in this match but it could set up a big season for the classy left-hander.
Rishabh Pant will have even more attention on his shoulders than usual in this match. He is always a high profile player anyway with the role that he plays in the side but he now adorns the burden of captaincy so it will be interesting to see if he embraces that or whether it shackles him.
Betting
I’m rarely one to bet on the match outcome at the Wankhede because the ground is so small and so impossible to defend with the wicket so good. I would usually have conceded the Delhi Capitals to come through this one but they are without their two best bowlers in Kagiso Rabada and Amrich Nortje and potentially their best spinner in Axar Patel in all likelihood too so I’m not really interested in siding with them or taking the Chennai Super Kings.
The bet I like instead comes in the sixes market where the line looks pretty low at 13.5. I get that Chennai don’t necessarily play a modern game in the T20 world but they do still have some clean hitters of a ball, with Moeen Ali, MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina and Sam Curran in particular all capable of clearing these ropes. The Delhi batting looks like a who’s who of big hitters so on these small boundaries and with two key bowlers out of play for Delhi, I expect the sixes to flow here.
Tips
WON – Back Over 13.5 sixes for a 4/10 stake at 1.85 with BetVIctor
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