The Indian Premier League gets underway on Saturday but before it does let us have a look at the market for the top batsman in the tournament. The competition might have moved in terms of venue and the time of the year but the one constant is the quality on show.
What might change though is while we are usually looking for powerful batsmen who can clear the ropes at ease, however that might not be the examination paper in front of the players this year so as punters we need to adapt to that.
Recent Winners
2019 – Dave Warner
2018 – Kane Williamson
2017 – Dave Warner
2016 – Virat Kohli
2015 – Dave Warner
2014 – Robin Uthappa
2013 – Michael Hussey
2012 – Chris Gayle
2011 – Chris Gayle
2010 – Sachin Tendulkar
Market Leaders
Virat Kohli is an 8/1 favourite to lead the run scoring charts but even though he has played his entire IPL career on the smallest ground in the competition he has only topped the run list once which suggests that the burden of captaining a struggling side doesn’t sit well with him when it comes to his batting. It remains to be seen if Bangalore go better this season and if they do if that has a positive effect on his game. The other thing to consider is he hasn’t played competitive cricket for six months so he feels a bit short to me.
Dave Warner has topped the run charts on three different occasions and given that he has been playing cricket in England in the lead up to this game he ticks a lot of boxes at 10/1. He has a good T20 record in the UAE which is another strong point and his Sunrisers Hyderabad side are expected to go well this season which could give him extra innings in the play-offs to boost his run tally. Aside from his recent form in England he ticks every box.
Rohit Sharma is 11/1 to be the top scorer in the tournament but when you analyse his record in the competition it is not good. I’m convinced a lot of that is because he has the pressure of leading one of the biggest franchises in the game in one of the more intense atmospheres. It might be that this tournament being away from Mumbai and behind closed doors helps him somewhat but we are guessing there and he isn’t really the sort of price to guess on.
KL Rahul is a 12/1 shot to win the run scoring list this season but although he is a class act who should be well suited to the test that is in front of him, he is skippering a franchise for the first time, and one which is expected to struggle and I would expect that to impact on his batting. I’m never one for backing captains in anything in T20 because the pressure they are under and the craziness they have to manage is so consuming. I’m not changing that for Rahul as good as he is.
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Profile
We need to whittle the field down. There are over 50 batsmen who are going to play regularly in this tournament and we can’t be backing all of them so let us apply some filters to try and get it to a more manageable level. Clearly the first thing we can do is get rid of anyone from side we don’t think will make the play-offs. Depending on where a team finishes their players could get up to three more innings to make a difference and that is significant.
Once we’ve done that we can further chop the field down by looking at batting position. I think the longer this tournament goes on the harder it is going to be to score deeper into the innings. That was the trend in the recent CPL where the top two in the run list were both opening batsmen and two more high up the list were in the top three for their side. I wouldn’t want to be backing anyone not in the top three but preferably it would be an opening batsman. The other thing is he must be able to play spin.
Betting
When you apply that criteria I come up with three top candidates – Dave Warner, Shikhar Dhawan and Shane Watson. Jonny Bairstow didn’t make the cut because these wickets might not suit him. Quinton de Kock missed out because he is a terrible player of spin and if captains aren’t bowling spin with him to begin with then they need replacing sharpish. Dhawan hasn’t played for ages so that’s the negative with him while Warner didn’t convince me in England and while his record here is respected his price is pretty cramped.
The same can’t be said of the price of Shane Watson though and at 33/1 I think he’s a great bet. He ticks all the boxes I want. He plays for the team I think will be the champions, he will definitely open the batting for them and he has a very good record on these grounds in the Pakistan Super League which has been played here for the last few seasons prior to the most recent one. Watson will go after the bowling in the powerplay and get ahead of the run scoring but he is good enough to rotate the strike off the spinners. He made just under 400 runs last season but I fancy he’ll be even stronger in these conditions.
Tips
Back S.Watson Top Tournament Batsman (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 34.00 with Coral (1/4 1-4)
Back him here:
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