The offering from the Indian Premier League on Thursday sees second from top playing second from bottom as the Gujarat Lions host the Sunrisers Hyderabad in Rajkot.
A win for the Lions will see them move two points clear at the top of the table but a win for the Sunrisers would have them right back in the pack as the tournament begins to warm up and the importance increases.
Gujarat Lions
The newcomers have played three matches this season and they have won all three which is just the beginning to the tournament they would have been looking for. Power with the bat and variety with the ball has been their friend so far and they’ll be hoping that continues here.
Interestingly they have chased in all three matches to date so it will be interesting to see how they go when the time comes that they have to bat first but a look down their team list and they are perfectly kitted out to defend totals.
Sunrisers Hyderabad
After a couple of team defeats to open up their campaign, the Hyderabad side finally got off the mark for the season on Monday when they eased home in Mumbai courtesy of a wonderful knock from Dave Warner.
That was both a good thing and a bad thing for the Sunrisers as their batting still has a feel of Morgan and Warner or nothing about it and as good as he’s going at the minute, Warner’s form won’t last forever and we need to see some back up plans for them for when he fails.
Team news
Gujarat Lions are expected to have Ravi Jadeja back for this match after he was given some time off for his wedding. That will be a boost to their bowling options, especially with spin proving tricky to score from in the first match here. Aaron Finch pulled up late on in the last game and is a doubt here. Dwayne Smith will come in if the Australian doesn’t make it.
After a win last time out you would think the Sunrisers will be unchanged here but they still need to find some extra batting mite so if they wanted to they could make changes. Ashish Nehra, Yuvraj Singh and Kane Williamson remain on the sidelines so their options are limited.
Form
Gujarat Lions: WWW
Sunrisers Hyderabad: LLW
Head to head: First meeting
Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium
The first match in the tournament here was a mid-range scoring game although it must be said that the Lions would have scored many more than the 164 they needed given that they chased the total down with two overs to spare so the trend of this being a high scoring ground shouldn’t be forgotten.
There was talk that playing spin on the wicket that was produced for that match wasn’t easy so it will be interesting to see if this one turns but by and large I’m expecting a true batting wicket and high scoring game with it.
Betting
I’ve not got involved in the match betting too many times in this tournament yet but I’m happy to here. I guess you could argue that odds against on the Sunrisers is value pre-toss because of the strong batting second bias there has been in this IPL season but I’m not one for betting on that.
While it is true that chasing has worked well in this tournament I don’t see there being an issue with batting first if you have a good batting line up and the Lions have that. If they can keep Dave Warner quiet they’ll be huge favourites to win this match but even if they don’t Brendon McCullum, Suresh Raina and either Aaron Finch or Dwayne Smith can more than match his exploits.
Whether they bat first or bat second the home side have drifted to a price which I can’t ignore anymore going into this one. It is the Gujarat Lions for me.
Tips
Back Gujarat Lions to beat Sunrisers Hyderabad for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with Bet365
Back them here:
