Second spot outright is up for grabs in the ILT20 season on Tuesday when two of the bigger franchises in the competition meet when the Abu Dhabi Knight Riders go up against the defending champions MI Emirates.
Both of these teams have started their campaign with a couple of wins and a couple of defeats each but one of them will move to three wins and whoever that is will finish the day in second place and in position to kick on.
Abu Dhabi Knight Riders
The Abu Dhabi Knight Riders probably have a better record than their tally suggests. What I mean by that is that they have won two games and lost two games but the two they have lost were against the leaders Desert Vipers and getting them out of the way looks to be an advantage as we head to the halfway point of the regular campaign. You could argue the other way in that their wins have come against the bottom two teams but the other five teams behind the Desert Vipers are all tightly packed in the table.
The big thing in those two matches that the Knight Riders have won is that their bowlers were on top. It is hard for bowlers to contain the Vipers batting because so many of their players are in form. The other thing about those two wins are that they were done batting first. With the dew factor and everything else matches are usually won chasing a score in this tournament so the fact that they can defend scores is definitely no bad thing. They are yet to successfully chase a score so that will be a box that they want to tick.
MI Emirates
It has been a bit of an up and down start to the campaign for the MI Emirates. When they have been good they have been really good and won both of their matches in fine fashion but when they haven’t quite been on it they can come up short and they will want to ensure there is much more of the former and a lot less of the latter. They are probably still coming to terms with one or two differences in their squad from the one which won the title to be fair.
The good early thing is that the MI Emirates have won a match when they have set a target and they won their last one by chasing down a potentially daunting looking total. They chased down 176 with 14 balls to spare and while that was in Sharjah that is still a decent effort when you consider they had one win and two losses heading into the game. The Emirates have potency with the new ball which should help them in this competition and genuine power throughout the batting order.
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Key Players
Jason Holder showed his all-round skills in the last game for the Abu Dhabi Knight Riders with some clean hits later in the innings and then he bowled four economical overs and picked up a couple of wickets too. The Knight Riders will be after more of the same here.
Tom Banton is the second highest run scorer in the competition and he only needs 16 runs in this match to hit the front in that department. There is a lot of power below him in the batting order so if he can score runs and set it up for them it bodes well.
Betting
This is a tough one to bet on because these two sides have both shown inconsistencies over the course of the tournament and you sense the one which plays the best on the day will win because there isn’t really any area of strength which stands out across either side. The Anu Dhabi Knight Riders do look a big price but then it does need to be said that on the occasions that MI Emirates turn up it is hard to see them being beaten very often.
The bet I’ll take is the performance line of Jason Holder which looks quite low at 27.5. He didn’t offer much to the party in the opening game but we can excuse him for needing a game to get up to speed. Since then he has taken 4/23, 2/24 and 2/25 and in the last two matches he has scored 27 and 16 so his main scoring methods are working well for him. He always has catch potential with him placed in the hot spots because of his height and when you put it all together there is more than enough to think that he can cover his line here.
Tips
Back J.Holder’s Performance – Over 27.5pts for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
