The Indian Premier League regular season ends with a pair of double headers this weekend and the first of those begins in Kanpur on Saturday when the Gujarat Lions host the defending champions Sunrisers Hyderabad.
This will be the final match of the campaign for the Lions. They haven’t been good enough this season. This could also be the final match for the Sunrisers too unless they win. If they win they are definitely into the play-offs looking to defend their title. Defeat and they need results to do their way.
Gujarat Lions
We saw just why the season has been largely a write off for the Gujarat Lions last time out when they were beaten by the Delhi Daredevils despite having put up what looked like a significant total. The fact they have not won a match all season when they have batted first just highlights exactly where their issues have been.
They just can’t keep any pressure on sides with the ball. Even when they got themselves into a winning position, a seemingly impossible to lose from position, against Delhi last time out they found a way to lose and it has been that sort of campaign for them. They have batted well in the main but that means little.
Sunrisers Hyderabad
The Sunrisers ended a mini dodgy spell with an emphatic win over the Mumbai Indians last time out and if they can beat them they will know they can beat anyone. One issue they are going to have to overcome in this match if they are to seal their own destiny is a poor away record. They couldn’t ask for a better chance to seal a play-off spot though.
One thing we’ve noticed with the Sunrisers this season has been when their top order has gone well they generally win cricket matches but if they lose a batch of wickets in the first 10 overs generally speaking nobody down the order has stood up and won them a match. Usually that would be a concern but they do have the two top run getters in the competition.
Team News
Despite their defeat last time out there aren’t many options for the Gujarat Lions to change things around so we can expect them to finish the season unchanged.
Ashish Nehra and Yuvraj Singh are both rated extremely doubtful for this match for the Sunrisers Hyderabad. Nehra never played the previous match anyway while Deepak Hooda is in line to replace Yuvraj.
[the_ad_group id=”3624″]
Betting
With the Sunrisers’ away form not the best and Gujarat Lions unable to win when batting first I’m going to leave the match betting alone and focus on a couple of player bets for this opening match of the day.
Dave Warner is having a brilliant tournament and I fancy he’ll extend his good form in this match. He has a wonderful record against the Gujarat Lions. In four innings against them he has made 74*, 24, 93* and 76* so I’m a little surprised he has a performance line of just 37.5 especially when you consider he has ten catches in the tournament too. He has covered this line seven times with the bat this season so I’m on the over there.
Rashid Khan ripped through the Gujarat Lions in the reverse meeting between the two teams and in truth none of them knew how to play him. We saw in the first match in Kanpur that there is a bit of turn in this wicket and the young leggie will be able to exploit that. Khan took 3/19 that day and anything similar can see him as the top Sunrisers bowler.
Tips
WON – Back D.Warner’s Performance – Over 37.5pts for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Bet365
Back him here:
Back R.Khan Top Sunrisers Hyderabad Bowler for a 2/10 stake at 4.33 with William Hill
Back him here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2017
