The third season of the ILT20 competition gets up and running on Saturday when the defending champions MI Emirates take to the pitch to go up against the Dubai Capitals in a crunch match to get the campaign started.
MI Emirates were too good for anyone in the tournament a year ago and will be out to show that wasn’t a fluke as they begin their title defence whereas the Capitals will be out to show that they can challenge strongly this term. This match is a repeat of the 2024 final.
Dubai Capitals
The Dubai Capitals have made the playoffs in this competition on both occasions so far having finished fourth in the table in each season. That will be their immediate aim once again although in an ideal world they would finish a little higher this time around to ease the pressure towards the end of the regular season and give themselves a better chance of making the final. A win here would be the perfect way to get things underway.
That might not be as easy as it seems though because they are a side who are probably going to get better the longer the season goes as their captain Dave Warner isn’t here until the end of the Big Bash and one or two other overseas players make their way here at short notice. The good thing for the Capitals is that they have a good bowling unit and the one thing we’ve seen in this tournament in the first two stagings is that the better bowling teams go the best.
MI Emirates
The MI Emirates have been beaten in Qualifier 2 and then won the tournament in the first two campaigns of this event and they will be hoping to win it again when defending the title for the first time. There is a clear case to be made that on paper they have the strongest squad in the competition but we see in franchise leagues around the world that it doesn’t always marry up that the best squad wins the competition so they’ll be out to lay a marker down here.
The MI Emirates kept most of their squad from last season ahead of this one but they have added some strength with Romario Shepherd coming in to add even more firepower with the bat while the pace of Alzarri Joseph could be key as well. There are some teams in this competition who look light with either the bat or the ball but you couldn’t say that about the Emirates. The only question mark would be some of their squad haven’t had a competitive hit for a while.
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Key Players
Sikandar Raza had a wonderful season for the Dubai Capitals last term and while they wait for all of their overseas players to land and start delivering the goods, Dubai could do with the Zimbabwean impressing right out of the gate here.
Nicholas Pooran is always the star attraction in any team that he plays in when you consider the quality that he has with the bat and the power that he can display anywhere in the world. He’ll be looking to entertain in the opener here.
Betting
I’m largely going to take more of a watching brief in the opening stages of this tournament rather than a betting one because the squads are still settling down in the competition and players are coming and going and everything so until we know exactly who is where and things like that I’m largely going to keep my powder dry. These are two sides I would like to evaluate before I go big on their matches and I also want to get a feel for the conditions as well.
One bet I will go with for this first game is for Rovman Powell to be the top Dubai Capitals batter. He plays for the Delhi Capitals in the IPL so he will be familiar with the setup and generally in this part of the world the power players come to the fore early on in the competition before the pitches tire. When I look at the MI Emirates setup they look stronger with the new ball than at the back end of the innings and if things go to plan the end of the innings is when Powell will be doing his best work. He feels a big price at 5/1 in a light Dubai Capitals batting order.
Tips
Back R.Powell Top Dubai Capitals Batter for a 2/10 stake at 6.00 with Bet365
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