There is just the one match in the International League T20 tournament on Friday and it is a huge one for the MI Emirates as they look to secure their place in the ILT20 finals. They take on the Abu Dhabi Knight Riders in Abu Dhabi.
The equation here is a pretty simple one for the Knight Riders. They are playing purely for pride because they are already out of the competition even with two matches left. Dubai’s loss on Thursday means the Emirates will secure a top four finish with a win.
MI Emirates
When the competition started the MI Emirates were the favourites to win the tournament and when they were pretty comfortable winners of their opening three matches it looked like they would justify that billing but they have only won one of their last four completed outings and doubts are beginning to creep in. We did suggest right back at the beginning that the longer this campaign went on the more there was a chance for them to be found out purely because of the number of aging players in their setup.
As you would expect for a side with the talent that they have, when the MI Emirates are good they tend to be very good and blow any team in the competition away, but all too often the reverse has been true and when they haven’t been good they have been beaten a little too easily for comfort. There is a feeling that the MI Emirates are better with the bat but that in itself is a concern given that these pitches are beginning to tire quite badly.
Abu Dhabi Knight Riders
When you start a new tournament you want to make a positive impression as soon as possible but the Abu Dhabi Knight Riders have done anything but that. They have been beyond abject at times and even on the rare occasions they have offered up a good performance it hasn’t been enough. They have completed seven matches and have lost the lot and even if they win both of their remaining matches they can’t make it into the final stage of the campaign.
Overall, it has been the batting which just hasn’t been good enough for the Knight Riders and when they reflect on the season and look to address things for next season you would imagine they will can a few supposedly big name batters for some who are more suited to the conditions which they are presented with in this part of the world. Their bowlers could have done better as well but so often they have had little to nothing to work with that it would be harsh to criticise them too much.
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Key Players
Nicholas Pooran was going along like a train in the previous match against the Gulf Giants but he was got out with over seven overs to go and the MI innings fell away. They could do with the top class West Indies player turning his starts into a big score.
Joe Clarke has picked up where he left off in the Big Bash League for the Abu Dhabi Knight Riders. He made 50 last time out but nobody was able to build on the platform that he made. He might need to go even bigger here.
Betting
I always think when the MI Emirates are in action that the sixes just have to flow and I think that even more when you consider that the Abu Dhabi Knight Riders are playing for absolutely nothing here so can officially pin their ears back and send a few balls into orbit. They have some dangerous hitters of a cricket ball at the best of times let alone when they have the freedom to go on the all-out attack on a relatively small ground like this one is.
MI Emirates need no invitation to wallop the sixes. They only made 139 in their previous match which was on this ground but that innings contained seven sixes without Andre Fletcher, Najibullah Zadran and Dwayne Bravo contributing to the total. Their previous batting effort, albeit at Sharjah, yielded a dozen sixes so there are definitely sixes in these two teams and on a relatively small ground a 12.5 sixes line is just too tempting to ignore.
Tips
Back Over 12.5 sixes for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with BetVictor
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