The Indian Premier League heads to Sharjah for the first time this season on Friday for the IPL 2021 clash between the Royal Challengers Bangalore and the Chennai Super Kings, one which is pretty big for both sides.
The Royal Challengers were blown away in their season restart earlier in the week while the Super Kings knocked off the defending champions Mumbai in the first game back. That form doesn’t look as strong as it might do though so it will be interesting to see what happens here.
Royal Challengers Bangalore
For as bad as that defeat was for the Royal Challengers Bangalore on Monday, the only damage it has done is to their net run rate because they still sit third in the standings heading into this match. It does mean that with such a negative run rate now though that they can’t really afford another slip up here. The Royal Challengers do look to be the archetypal team who will come on for the run though when you consider the number of players they have who hadn’t played a game for a while.
They will certainly need to come on for that run though because there is no denying that their display in their first game back was little short of pathetic. Their batting wasn’t at the races at all and they surrendered a little too tamely for my liking. We can’t really judge them with the ball because their bowlers had nothing to defend and were on a hiding to nothing from the minute they stepped out onto the field. On a tiny ground like this Bangalore will need their bowlers to stand up.
Chennai Super Kings
The Chennai Super Kings were one of the better teams in the Indian leg of this season and there were enough signs in that first game back that they are going to remain relevant even though we are now in the UAE for the remainder of the season. There was a confidence about them, which even though they had players who hadn’t been active recently, they had more than enough to put up a decent performance.
The good thing for the Super Kings is that there is naturally going to be more to come from them too and then when a couple of key players are available there will be even more to perk them up further so right now there is a lot to like about the men in yellow. They can’t afford to rest easy though because this table is beginning to bunch up a little bit though so the quicker they can get three more wins to guarantee their play-off spot the better.
Special Offer
Sign up for a Boylesports account to get up to £25 in free bets! Perfect offer for this tournament! Click the image below for this great offer! New accounts only. 18+ T&Cs apply. Gamble Aware.
Key Men
AB de Villiers was clearly rusty in that opening match. He was always going to be rusty but he’s had a chance to taste the conditions and get a bit more practice in and if we see him at his best here he could destroy the bowling on this tiny ground.
Dwayne Bravo continued where he left off in the CPL in the first game back earlier in the week and if he can find some consistent form to that level for the remainder of the season then Chennai will look good both in this match and until their campaign ends.
Betting
I’m not one for betting on the match outcome on this ground and never have I been. I’m not going to start that now. This is the first game here so you’ve got to think the pitch is going to play pretty well and it might be that there is dew around too so the chasing side will have plenty going for them in this match especially with the short boundaries of this Sharjah track. Those boundaries won’t take a lot of finding so I’m surprised the boundaries line is as low as 40.5 here.
I would normally take the sixes on this ground but it might be that Bangalore do a lot of their scoring on the floor so as to avoid a repeat of the horror show they delivered earlier in the week. Chennai have a couple of players who find the boundaries on the floor rather than in the air too so for once I think the safer bet here might be on the boundaries than the sixes, especially with the sixes being near enough half of the boundaries line. I like over 40.5 boundaries in this one.
Tips
Back Over 40.5 boundaries for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with William Hill
Back it here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2021
