The second match in the double header in the Indian Premier League on Saturday sees the Gujarat Lions hosting the Mumbai Indians in a match which offers plenty of appeal to the neutral and which will hopefully transcend into a great game of cricket.
Mumbai Indians are nicely in the playoff mix and a win here will further enhance their chances while Gujarat are suddenly showing some fight and still harbour hopes of a late run to the postseason themselves.
Gujarat Lions
The Lions are a little hit and miss at the minute and a lot of that is down to whether they bat first or bowl first. If they bat first they generally lose the match and if they bat second more often than not they end up winning the match and that is a pattern and predictability which they need to snap out of.
Clearly the reason for that inconsistency is that they can’t find a bowling combination which both takes wickets and restricts the opposition in terms of run scoring. It isn’t even like they need to restrict sides to small scores because they have a batting line up which can chase anything slightly over par.
Mumbai Indians
The early pacesetters in the competition have now been pulled down to second place in the league table and they will be out to get their top spot back. If they are going to do that then they need to return to winning ways but not just win matches but do it convincingly like the Kolkata Knight Riders have been doing.
That is perfectly possible though. They have a really eye catching and appealing batting line up with power right the way down and they have bowlers who when they get it right they can smash through any batting line up in the competition. They just need to put it all together more often than not.
Team News
There is no immediate reason for the Gujarat Lions to change their side but this is a franchise who haven’t always gone with normality in this tournament. Unless there is a late injury they will surely be unchanged.
Mumbai Indians might decide to bring Lasith Malinga back into their side after he has had a good rest now. Mitchell Johnson has played a few matches and might be due to sit one out on what is a hectic weekend.
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Betting
You would think the chasing side has every chance in this match so betting on the outcome until we know the result of the toss isn’t really easy and probably isn’t wise either. Therefore I will head to the side markets once again here.
I expect this to be a high scoring match. 162/7 is the lowest score on this ground in four matches so far this season and with this Mumbai batting line up having already chased almost 200 in this competition already I see no reason why the scoring is going to stop here. The total runs line in this one is 334.5 and that just looks far too low to me.
Aaron Finch had a day out in Bangalore in Gujarat Lions’ last match and looked to be hitting the ball really well and given that Gujarat know whenever they play they have to score runs he can clear his mind and continue to play aggressively which suits his game perfectly. If he can get stuck into this attack he could put up the sort of numbers that get him noticed in the man of the match talk at a big price.
Tips
Back Over 334.5 total runs for a 7/10 stake at 1.73 with Bet365
Back it here:
Back A.Finch Man of the Match for a 1/10 stake at 11.00 with NetBet
Bet here:
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