There is one match in the Indian Premier League on Good Friday as the IPL 2024 season continues for the Royal Challengers Bangalore and the Kolkata Knight Riders in what should be an explosive battle to be enjoyed.
Bangalore have a win and a defeat on their ledger this season while the Knight Riders have won the only match that they have played and have the chance to boost their early season position if they can pick up another win here.
Royal Challengers Bangalore
The Royal Challengers Bangalore dropped their opening game of the season but got off the mark at the second time of asking when they got the better of the Punjab Kings and they will be looking to back that up on Friday when they are the first team of the campaign to play a third match. The defeat was away from home and the win was in front of their own fans so if they can make the Chinnaswamy something of a fortress it would certainly help them.
While Bangalore won their last match, for much of the run chase it looked like they might come up short as once again their middle order failed to come to the party. They scored just 35 from 42 balls from numbers three to six in their line up and if that unit doesn’t come good soon you just don’t see where Bangalore get enough wins from. To their credit, their finishers rescued them but they can’t rely on that all season so all eyes will be on the middle order here.
Kolkata Knight Riders
The Kolkata Knight Riders opened their season in the style we have become accustomed to seeing them perform in. By that, I mean powerful batting and bowling which offered the opposition the chance to score runs but in the end just doing enough to get the job done. That was probably a little harsh because it was the most brutal blitz you’ll see from Heinrich Klaasen which nearly got the Sunrisers over the line against them.
The big thing for the Knight Riders was that Andre Russell fired up the big hits in the opening game. Nobody finishes innings better than he does and that is immediately going to release the pressure on the top order batters knowing that they have someone who has the pyrotechnical ability that he has. They could do with a top bowling effort though. This bowling unit hasn’t gone well for a while now and for all their batting power, they can’t really be relied upon to defend scores.
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Key Players
Virat Kohli looked in much better touch in the last game, as he so often does in a run chase, and if he can build on that form then he will give Bangalore the platform to chase a win regardless of whether the middle order stand up to be counted.
Andre Russell reminded everyone why he was the most feared batter in the world game a few years ago with a brutal blitz of his own in the first Kolkata match. This ground certainly isn’t big enough to contain him and there is no mystery spinner to outwit him.
Betting
I wasn’t going to get involved in the sixes in a Bangalore match so soon after watching Virat Kohli hit everything for four rather than six in the last game but we have a sixes line of just 14.5 in this encounter and that looks far too low. It is said that this match is being played on a different wicket to the one which was used on Monday so there is naturally going to be a shorter boundary, not that any of the boundaries on this ground are particularly long.
Glenn Maxwell hasn’t fired in this tournament yet but we saw in the World Cup what he can do in this part of the world but even if he doesn’t get going here we still have the likes of Faf du Plessis, Cameron Green, Dinesh Karthik, Phil Salt, Sunil Narine, Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh and Andre Russell who smash a long ball. There really isn’t a lot in either attack to worry the batters here so I expect to see this line covered either with a steady flow of sixes across both teams or the likes of Maxwell or Russell taking a huge chunk out of the total for the rest to clear with ease.
Tips
Back Over 14.5 sixes for a 5/10 stake at 1.73 with Boylesports
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