The first double header of the Indian Premier League season takes place on Saturday and the opening game is the first match of the campaign in Hyderabad as the Sunrisers Hyderabad host the Kolkata Knight Riders.
Both teams were taken to the cleaners in their previous match so it goes without saying that they will both be out to bounce back here which should make for an exciting, competitive contest.
Sunrisers Hyderabad
Sometimes you have to look deeper than just the scorecard to see where a side went wrong when they lose but that certainly wasn’t the case for the Sunrisers when they lost to the Royal Challengers Bangalore.
They were torn apart with the ball and really apart from David Warner they offered little with the bat which would have been worrying for Tom Moody and his coaching staff. We shouldn’t write them off with the ball just yet. Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers will destroy plenty more attacks yet but the concern is already there.
Kolkata Knight Riders
The former champions got off to a flying start in the tournament as they humbled the Delhi Daredevils in their first match but they were on the wrong end of a Jos Buttler blitz in the second one and their task now will be to bounce back and get back on the winning trail.
In fairness to Gautam Gambhir and his men they didn’t do a whole lot wrong against the Mumbai Indians. Buttler will destroy plenty of attacks in this tournament not just theirs. If they can improve anything then Gambhir could manage his bowlers slightly better but that is being incredibly harsh.
Team news
The Sunrisers are starting to run into injury problems. Yuvraj Singh was ruled out for a couple of weeks in the week leading up to the tournament and news broke in the last day or so that Kane Williamson has an injury too. If that isn’t enough Ashish Nehra went lame in the last game and he’ll miss this one.
Kolkata are expected to have Sunil Narine available for this match and all the consensus is that he is going to come into the side. With Andre Russell a certain starter and Brad Hogg having started the season strongly it looks like John Hastings or Colin Munro could be the ones to make way.
Form
Sunrisers Hyderabad: L
Kolkata Knight Riders: WL
Head to head: Sunrisers Hyderabad 2-4 Kolkata Knight Riders
In Hyderabad: Sunrisers Hyderabad 1-1 Kolkata Knight Riders
Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium
The ground in Hyderabad is usually a high scoring ground. Last year the first two first innings scores on the ground were 192 and 185 with the 185 only proving to be good enough by five runs.
The boundaries are quite big but with nice pace and bounce in the deck they are accessible especially with the lightning fast outfields that Indian grounds always provide. Based on the evidence of the previous games these two were involved in earlier in the week this could well be another high scoring game.
Betting
I fancy the Kolkata Knight Riders here. Although I expect this to be a high scoring match I think the quality of their bowlers, spin bowlers especially, will prove to be the difference. I think the Knight Riders have the longer batting line up although in fairness Hyderabad go fairly deep themselves. It isn’t with the same quality though so I’m behind the Knight Riders in this one.
I’m also going to get involved in the boundaries. The line is at 38.5 which looks quite low actually. When you look at the four matches here last year the opening two, the high scoring games, had 50 and 48 boundaries while the other two matches saw 30 hit in a shortened game which had 17 overs in total and 25 in a match where 113 played 114/1.
That all signals to me that boundaries are likely to flow in this one and as such I’m happy to be on them especially as both bowling attacks come off trips to the cleaners in their last outings.
I’m also going to take the run line for Dave Warner for the second time in this tournament. Warner averages 63.10 from 13 matches on this ground so he loves batting here and why wouldn’t he? It is a great track to bat on.
In the last two matches where the Sunrisers have hosted Kolkata, Warner has hit 34 and 91 so although the Knight Riders attack is competent it seems to have problems getting Warner out early. Warner goes into the match off the back of a lightning quick 58 in his first match of the season. All things being equal he’ll make it way past 20.5 runs here.
Tips
WON – Back Kolkata Knight Riders to beat Sunrisers Hyderabad for a 4/10 stake at 1.73 with Ladbrokes
Back them here:
Back Over 38.5 boundaries for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with William Hill
Back it here:
Back D.Warner – Over 20.5 runs for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with Paddy Power
Back him here:
