There is another double header of cricket in the Indian Premier League on Sunday with the first of the two matches coming from Bangalore as the Royal Challengers Bangalore host the Rajasthan Royals in an interesting game for both sides.
Both teams have started the season with a win and a loss and are part of a growing band of teams on two points heading into the day. The winners here will break free from that group of sides which is a perfect incentive for both heading into this one.
Royal Challengers Bangalore
The start to the season for the Royal Challengers Bangalore has been in keeping with their previous seasons. They seem unable to defend a total no matter which personnel they include in their bowling attack and there is such an emphasis on their top four to deliver with the bat it is untrue. It will work now and again but it can’t be the recipe for long-term success.
Bangalore lost their opening match when they couldn’t defend what looked an acceptable total if nothing special and then in their second match they nearly threw a victory away and it was only a world class knock from AB de Villiers that got them over the line. You have to say for a side with the talent they have, nothing they have done so far has been convincing.
Rajasthan Royals
It is harder to judge the Rajasthan Royals than most sides in the tournament to date. I say that because their second match was heavily influenced by the rain and while they did amazingly well to come out on top against the Delhi Daredevils despite batting first, you couldn’t really reflect on that when eyeing up a 20 over contest.
One thing we can say is that their batting has not yet hit the heights expected of it and that is going to have to change over the longer term if they are going to go on and win this tournament. We did see against Delhi that they can be clever with the ball and they may well need all of their variations to contain this Bangalore top four.
Team News
The Royal Challengers Bangalore are expected to remain unchanged from the side which edged over the line against the Kings XI Punjab last time out which means that Chris Woakes will be their only overseas bowler.
Rajasthan Royals have Jofra Archer in the country now and having been seen batting and bowling in the nets in the lead up to the match the signs are he will replace Ben Laughlin. Heinrich Klaasen was also spotted in the nets on Saturday which could mean he comes in for D’Arcy Short with Rahul Tripathi moving back up to open.
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Betting
I think the Rajasthan Royals are the better balanced of these two sides but I’m reluctant to back anyone on this ground before we see the result of the toss especially having seen a side fail to defend a score here last week. That leads me to the side markets for a bet.
The bet in question is the sixes one where the line is 13.5 which I think is very much on the acceptable side. We saw in the first game at the Chinnaswamy that this is not the wicket of two or three years ago but at the same time it certainly isn’t a minefield either. We have some big hitters on show here with de Kock, McCullum, AB de Villiers, Kohli, Buttler, Stokes and Samson among others all huge strikers. I think we’ll be good for 14 sixes in this one.
Tips
WON – Back Over 13.5 sixes for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with BetVictor
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