We move back to Mumbai in the Indian Premier League on Thursday for a tasty looking clash between the Rajasthan Royals and the beaten finalists of last season, Delhi Capitals in what should be a very entertaining evening of cricket.
The Rajasthan Royals came so close to upsetting the Punjab Kings in their opening match but will be looking to get off the mark here instead while the Delhi Capitals cruised to victory against the Chennai Super Kings in their first game and can join Rajasthan on top with a win here.
Rajasthan Royals
The concern heading into the season was how well the Rajasthan Royals bowling attack would go without Jofra Archer and the answer, at least as far as the opening match goes, is not great. I’m not going to condemn them for looking bad with the ball on this ground because it is one of the best batting venues in the world but there was a bit of a dropping off in standard when the attack was on them. That is something that will need to change here.
The positive for the Royals was that having conceded a ridiculous amount of runs, they were within a few feet of chasing down a sizable total so if they can tighten up with the ball they have it in them to win games of cricket. They might look at their personnel with the ball because a few went round the park and they have Andrew Tye sat on the bench who would at least offer them some control at the end of the innings.
Delhi Capitals
There was so much to like about the performance of the Delhi Capitals in that opening match. They always say that teams like to put down a marker early in a season or a tournament and that is exactly what the Capitals did. They were mean enough with the ball, with plenty of natural improvement to come in that area as key players get up to full speed and fitness, and they were brutal and relentless with the bat.
There was quite a lot of pressure on Delhi in that match to show that they weren’t one season wonders and that they have improved significantly enough to go one better than they did last term. They emphatically did that and with Kagiso Rabada to come back into their side here and Amrich Nortje to follow in the next game assuming his Covid-19 test result comes back negative, the Capitals can already be expected to be in the mix come the end of the season.
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Key Men
In the absence of Ben Stokes who is done for the season, Liam Livingstone could be a key man. He can either open the batting or bat in the middle order and get big hits away and he provides another spin option with the ball which might be helpful against a side whose danger men are mostly left-handers.
Kagiso Rabada is back for the Delhi Capitals for this match having arrived late from South Africa which meant that he had to miss the first game of the season. The Purple Cap holder of last season will be looking to hit the ground running and his team may well need him to as well to keep Jos Buttler and Sanju Samson in check.
Betting
We saw the other night exactly why I don’t like getting involved in the match betting on this ground and I’m not going to change away from that here although you would think that the Delhi Capitals will be the ones to get the job done. There are match winners on either side though and if any of the Royals stars have a day out they could easily impact the outcome. That makes me head to the side markets and with the sixes having been good to us so far on this ground this season it makes sense to stick with them.
We can get a fair price on a 15.5 line in this match which looks more than acceptable when you consider that the last game on this ground contained 24 of them and that was with Jos Buttler not hitting a single six. There are just way too many big hitters here not to take the over in this match. We have Buttler, Samson, either David Miller or Livingstone, Parag, Tewatia, Morris, Shaw, Dhawan, Pant, Stoinis and Hetmyer who are all clean and big strikers of a ball. This line looks well within reach to me.
Tips
Back Over 15.5 sixes for a 3/10 stake at 1.85 with BetVictor
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