We are back down to the one match in the Indian Premier League on Monday as the action returns to Sharjah for the clash between the Royal Challengers Bangalore and the Kolkata Knight Riders in what should be a feisty and competitive contest.
These two teams occupy third and fourth spot in the table which reaches its halfway point in this match and the winners will go level with Mumbai and Delhi at the top while the losers will be left to rebuild once again.
Royal Challengers Bangalore
Despite getting off to a terrible start in their last match against the Chennai Super Kings on Saturday, the Royal Challengers Bangalore ended up being far too good to pick up their fourth win in six matches. We know they haven’t been as convincing as that record but you can never criticise a team for winning. That tends to breed confidence and with some big players either back to fitness or back into form there is a feeling that the Royal Challengers could kick on from here.
It has to be said that their bowling hasn’t been all that good in this tournament and their attack was flattered by a terrible Chennai run chase on Saturday, although it might be that the return of Chris Morris has changed their fortunes on that side of the ball. In a way time will tell here although this is a tiny ground as we all know so it probably wouldn’t be fair to judge the bowling unit on what they serve up here, unless it is very good of course.
Kolkata Knight Riders
The Kolkata Knight Riders will probably still be wondering how they came away from their match against the Kings XI Punjab on Saturday with the win when they looked dead and buried throughout the whole of the Kings XI run chase. Often this format is all about holding your nerve in the key moments though and that is exactly what Dinesh Karthik’s men did and they should take a lot of confidence from that, and from winning when they wasn’t at their best.
There was a clear positive in that match despite the indifferent performance. That was the return to form of Karthik himself. In these huge franchise competitions it is always huge for a captain to be performing as so much of the budget goes in their direction. Kolkata still don’t seem convincing in knowing their best batting line up but that shouldn’t matter as much here as they can largely wing it and get away with it on a ground as tiny as this one.
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Key Men
Virat Kohli really came to the party in the previous match for the Royal Challengers Bangalore and if he can pick up where he left off then all the power hitters in this Bangalore batting order can play around him and take the side beyond 200 which will most likely be needed here.
Andre Russell hasn’t really got going in this tournament yet but he is on a ground where his mishits will fly for six here and then his overs at the death could be crucial when Bangalore are looking to use the short boundaries to either propel a total or chase one down.
Betting
I think we are getting to the stage where even on this ground the sixes lines are going to struggle to be covered but I’m not sure we are quite there yet, especially with the power on show in these two teams. Bangalore bowled better in their last match against Chennai but bowling was made easier from a Chennai side that went absolutely nowhere after the powerplay so I need to see a good effort to back that up before I believe that unit is finally on song.
I can’t say I’ve been that convinced by the Knight Riders attack in truth and now that Sunil Narine has been called for a suspect bowling attack it remains to be seen a) if he plays and b) if he is effective with the ball if he does play. He’s the only real mystery bowler on offer for KKR and Bangalore will have seen plenty of him anyway. I expect the batsmen to dominate here and when you consider we have Aaron Finch, AB de Villiers, either Andre Russel or Tom Banton, Eoin Morgan and Chris Morris not to mention Virat Kohli, Nitish Rana, Rahul Tripathi and Devdutt Padikkal all batting for us it is hard to see the sixes not flowing. Kolkata have played on this ground once and clobbered 14 sixes against a very good Delhi attack. Bangalore have sixes in them so I expect over 21.5 sixes to land.
Tips
Back Over 21.5 sixes for a 3/10 stake at 1.95 with BetVictor
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