The second set of matches in the IPL 2021 season begin on Tuesday when the defending champions Mumbai Indians continue their title defence when they take on the Kolkata Knight Riders out in Chennai.
These two sides got off to very different starts over the weekend with the Mumbai Indians suffering their annual opening day defeat while the Knight Riders picked up an encouraging win and are in position to set the pace with another victory here.
Kolkata Knight Riders
In contrast to how the Mumbai Indians will feel about their opening game, the Kolkata Knight Riders will be absolutely buzzing about how well they played in their first game. It might be no bad thing they won against the Sunrisers Hyderabad because they now face an opponent who have the Indian sign over them with less than 48 hours recovery time, but we already saw the impact of Eoin Morgan in that first game and that is something to look forward to if you are a Kolkata fan.
There isn’t a team in the game that is led by Eoin Morgan that doesn’t play aggressive cricket. They announced their intentions immediately. They are going to swing hard and go big with the bat and then the unbelievable brain of Morgan will work his bowlers to do all he can to get them to defend whatever they post, or restrict a side to something they can chase. If you have followed England’s ODI team over the last five years you’ll know exactly what to expect from Kolkata now.
Mumbai Indians
You have to think that it is becoming a mental weight on the shoulders of the Mumbai Indians players whenever they step onto the field for the opening match of a season. They have lost their last eight now and in truth there wasn’t a whole lot to like at all about their performance in that first game. The positive for them is that they now face an opponent they have dominated over recent times and who are usually a guaranteed two points against.
The real surprise in that first game was how flat the Mumbai batting looked. It probably didn’t help that they had a ridiculous run out early on to get rid of Rohit Sharma but even then the likes of Hardik Pandya and Kieron Pollard were given a platform to do their thing from and it never really happened. They fought hard with the ball but in truth never looked like they had enough runs to defend. Mumbai will be looking for a much stronger performance here.
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Key Men
Nitish Rana was one of our picks to be the leading batsmen in this tournament and he showed why with a brutal 80 in the first game. He’ll face a tough Mumbai new ball pairing but if he can go after them and get them off their stride it could put the Knight Riders well ahead in the game.
There are three things in life. Death, taxes and Rohit Sharma piling on the runs against the Kolkata Knight Riders. The Mumbai captain will be extra motivated to deliver here too after that daft mix up with Chris Lynn on Friday. He’s likely to have regular opening partner Quinton de Kock alongside him too which will help.
Betting
Had the Kolkata Knight Riders’ record against the Mumbai Indians not have been as absolutely terrible as it is I might have chanced them to win this match but I can’t be taking that historical negative on here. Instead I’ll head to one of the side markets for a bet on the match. That comes in the total runs line where I wasn’t expecting to take too many overs in Chennai, and I still might not, but I think the line is a little on the low side here.
The line is 324.5 which probably looks a little high on this ground but when you think Mumbai made 159 batting first on Friday and Kolkata made 187/6 on Sunday it probably isn’t going to be high enough. The 159 was the bare lowest Mumbai could have made as well. Kolkata are going to go after it with the bat we know that. They are going to have Pat Cummins coming in at eight. Mumbai don’t lack in the batting depth department either and while Mumbai have the better attack of the two it is one which just is not suited to this wicket which should help Kolkata negate it. There is so much batting talent and power on show here that I expect the two scored combined to reach at least 325 runs.
Tips
Back Over 324.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.73 with Bet365
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