Six weeks after it began and 59 matches later the champions of the tenth Indian Premier League season is ready to be crowned. The final of the tournament on Sunday will see the top two in the regular season meeting when the Rising Pune Supergiant take on the Mumbai Indians in Hyderabad.
The Supergiant will be looking for their first and only title in their final match in existence while the Mumbai Indians will be out to seal a third title in ten years but if they are to be champions again they will have to reverse a trend which sees no table topping side winning the title since the opening season.
Rising Pune Supergiant
The side who finished second in the regular season table took their first chance at making this final and as such they have had five days to get to Hyderabad and prepare properly for this match. It might be that they don’t need to do anything differently in preparation for the game as they have won all three meetings with the Mumbai Indians this season.
One of the reasons for that is the mystery and the craft in their bowling attack. In each of the last two matches between the two the Mumbai Indians batsmen have had no answer to the changes of pace and the disguise that Rising Pune have produced. If the Pune batsmen deliver in this match they have every chance.
Mumbai Indians
It took the table topping Mumbai Indians two goes to make it through to this final but at least they head into it with a bit of momentum behind them although even their victory against the Kolkata Knight Riders in the second qualifier had plenty of issues about it. They won the match but a repeat of that performance won’t be enough.
While Mumbai will have been pleased to win on Friday it will be a hectic schedule to them to get to Hyderabad and prepare for this final and unlike the Supergiant, they do have work to do if they are to win this match. They will need their batting to fire like it can and they will definitely need their bowling to restrict Pune.
Team News
Unless there are any late illnesses or injuries we should expect the Rising Pune Supergiant to name an unchanged side. They could bring Usman Khawaja in for Lockie Ferguson but that is unlikely.
Mumbai Indians have a concern over Krunal Pandya who seemed to be nursing an injury at the end of the win on Friday. If that isn’t cramp and he is ruled out Harbhajan Singh could come in. Mitchell McClenaghan faces a game day fitness test.
[the_ad_group id=”3624″]
Betting
The beauty of the Indian Premier League playoffs is that both sides in the final go into the match off the back of wins which should ensure two confidence sides but I’m not sure how much confidence the Mumbai Indians can have taken from Friday’s win. They bowled very well against the Kolkata Knight Riders but the Knight Riders weren’t at the races. Even then Mumbai made heavy weather of things with the bat.
There is no weakness in the Rising Pune Supergiant right now and they have near enough everyone firing as they would like. They have plenty of match winners but they also have the unsung heroes who can step up to the plate and while not many sides beat the same teams four times in one season I have to be with Pune with nearly everything in their favour going into this match.
While I’m expecting Pune to win the final I’m not expecting it to be particularly high scoring in terms of big hits. There were 15 sixes when these two met at the Wankhede on Tuesday and just eight there in their regular meeting. That is a much smaller ground than this one and Tuesday had MS Dhoni going bonkers to push the six hitting so high. With what is at stake in this match I just don’t see this being free scoring so under 12.5 sixes looks right.
Manoj Tiwary is finishing the season strongly. His last two innings have seen him score 60 and then 58 with the latter coming against this opposition on Tuesday. He is a calm head that is needed in these big matches and given that we know he has the number four spot vacated by Ben Stokes he looks perfectly good value at 7/1 to lead the scoring for his side in this final.
Tips
Back Rising Pune Supergiant to beat Mumbai Indians for a 4/10 stake at 2.20 with Titanbet
Back them here:
WON – Back Under 12.5 sixes for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Skybet
Back it here:
Back M.Tiwary Top Rising Pune Supergiant Batsman for a 1/10 stake at 8.00 with NetBet
Back him here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2017
