The Indian Premier League continues on Tuesday as the second game of the season in Ahmedabad takes place when the Delhi Capitals go up against the Royal Challengers Bangalore in a battle of two teams in the top three.
Both these teams have won four of their first five matches so we know that whichever side comes out on top in this match will end the evening on top of the table. They will also have a healthy six point advantage on fifth place which could be significant.
Delhi Capitals
Even though they won both their matches in Chennai, the Delhi Capitals will probably be delighted to get away from the turgid wickets there and out here onto something which should play to their strengths a little more. While the pitches here are not averse to turning, the bat comes onto the bat which is what the majority of the Capitals batsmen want and what helps them showcase their best form so we should expect good things from Delhi here.
The real positive for Delhi in the two matches in Chennai were how their bowlers rose to the occasion, which wasn’t an automatic after they went round the park a couple of times in Mumbai. They also held their nerve in a Super Over to beat the Sunrisers Hyderabad and while no team wants to go down to that situation, when you come out on top you tend to take a lot of confidence from it so apart from losing R Ashwin to the Covid-19 situation, Delhi look in a decent place right now.
Royal Challengers Bangalore
You get the impression that all eyes will be on the Royal Challengers Bangalore here to see how they react to a first defeat of the season against the Chennai Super Kings last time out. They has won four matches prior to that and looked good but suddenly that looks a small sample size. That is even more the case when you consider it was their weaknesses of previous campaigns which came back to haunt them in that loss.
The two obvious weaknesses have been that their bowlers keep going round the park when the pressure comes along and their middle order can fall in a heap if nobody takes responsibility for the situation. For both to happen in the same match has the potential to stop the Royal Challengers in their stride so you feel this is a big match for them. Since that loss they have seen their overseas options shrink with the news that Adam Zampa and Kane Richardson have flown home to escape the Covid nightmare.
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Key Men
Axar Patel returned from his own Covid-19 nightmare last time out and when he represented India in the Test series on this ground he was taking wickets like they were going out of fashion. His record with the ball against AB de Villiers is very strong and as we saw in the Super Over he has plenty of nerve. With Ashwin missing Axar is a key man for the Capitals.
Glenn Maxwell’s dismissal in the previous game was the turning point not least because it looked very village. That started the collapse that the Royal Challengers went through so he needs to offer a little more responsibility here but he is the one man who can get after Axar and Mishra. His off spin might come in handy here too.
Betting
It was hard to read too much into the first match on this ground. There didn’t seem a huge amount wrong with the pitch but the Punjab Kings just never went anywhere. The way the top orders of these two sides play I find it hard to believe that this will be low scoring unless they get reckless and lose wickets early in the innings. The one thing we did see in that first game was the dew. If you go back to the India vs England series here you either had to chase to win or put up an enormous total so betting on the match outcome is not advisable until after the toss.
I’m going to side with the thought that there wasn’t as much wrong with the pitch here as Punjab Kings made it look and as such I like over 39.5 boundaries here. Kolkata were only chasing 124 here on Monday and they still hit 19 boundaries in getting home so that makes me think that this 39.5 line is a bit too low for two sides who look to go after the bowling up top but have enough depth down the order to bump up the boundary count. I’ll take the over here.
Tips
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