We have our first double header of the Indian Premier League season on Sunday and IPL 2021 continues at quite a pace. We begin in Chennai where the Royal Challengers Bangalore take on the Kolkata Knight Riders.
Bangalore have picked up a couple of wins so far and are already the only unbeaten side in the competition. Kolkata have won one and lost one so they have a bit of a platform to build on in what is the third game for both sides.
Royal Challengers Bangalore
The Royal Challengers Bangalore will be delighted with their start to the season. They have won both their matches and they have won a match chasing a score and one setting a score. That will give them even more confidence but if they are being honest with themselves they will admit they haven’t been brilliant yet. They nearly threw their opening match against the Mumbai Indians away late on and were looking down and out against the Sunrisers Hyderabad before their opponents collapsed out of nowhere.
The positive for the Challengers so far this season has been their bowling attack. Even when they looked down and out against the Sunrisers, they kept plugging away and eventually got their reward. If there is a concern, they still look way too reliant on their three heavyweight batsmen – Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers and Glenn Maxwell. All three are class acts but if one goes early it puts a lot of pressure on the other two to deliver.
Kolkata Knight Riders
The Kolkata Knight Riders picked up a good win in their season opener against the Sunrisers Hyderabad but then they let themselves down a little bit in defeat to the Mumbai Indians last time out in a match they were in control of in the early stages of their run chase. They threw a number of wickets away in that chase and will feel that they contributed to their own downfall, which is a position no team ever want to be in.
We know that their batsmen are going to be given the freedom to express themselves but on this tricky Chennai track there does need to be an ounce of nous in there as well else they will just collapse in a heap like they did against the Indians. The positive for Kolkata is that I expected their bowling attack to struggle a bit in these conditions but that hasn’t been the case. In fact, there might be more to come from this unit as it beds down.
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Key Men
Kolkata have got off to some great starts with the bat this season so the new ball spell of Kyle Jamieson could be important here. If he can rip a couple of early poles out then the Royal Challengers Bangalore will go some way to winning the match.
Andre Russell is becoming a gun with the ball for the Kolkata Knight Riders so Eoin Morgan could turn to him to get rid of Glenn Maxwell and AB de Villiers. If he can do that he could set the game up for Kolkata without needing his batting pyrotechnics.
Betting
We saw another low scoring match on this ground on Saturday and given that the groundsman will have had next to no time to work on the square in between the two fixtures I’ve got to think we might be in for another one of them in this game. There is plenty of power in the two batting line ups but we’ve seen already that these pitches aren’t suited to the clean hitters, instead it is the players with nous who are prospering.
This is the first day game of the tournament and while we know that means dew won’t be a feature, we also know that it will be baking hot and sticky and the spin is surely likely to dominate the game. Both sides can pack their teams with spin options and if the wicket is a little tacky, which with the square open to the elements during the game on Saturday it surely will be, then I think this is another match where the bowlers may leave with the upper hand. I like under 322.5 runs in this one.
Tips
Back Under 322.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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