The Indian Premier League offering on Thursday sees the bottom side in the IPL 2021 table taking on the team at the top as the Sunrisers Hyderabad take on the Chennai Super Kings at a Sharjah ground which hasn’t delivered the exciting cricket we would have expected so far.
The Sunrisers know they are only playing for pride from here on in while the Super Kings can extend their lead at the top with a win in this match and go some way to securing a top two finish and give themselves two chances of making the final.
Sunrisers Hyderabad
The Sunrisers Hyderabad went into their last match playing for pride and if that encounter is anything to go by they might well restore some. They put in a decent performance against the Rajasthan Royals and having spoiled their party, the Orange Army will now be looking to do something similar against the Chennai Super Kings, a team who they might be looking up to actually as a guide to how salvaging a season can lead to good things in the next one.
It only really needed the Sunrisers’ batting to come to the fore because regardless of the personnel they use, this isn’t a team who often are found wanting in the bowling department. With that in mind, the switch to bring Jason Roy in at the top of the innings looks to be a good one. He is one of the better openers in white ball cricket right now and has a whole lot more upside to him than a Dave Warner whose best years look behind him.
Chennai Super Kings
If you think back to last season the Chennai Super Kings were in a similar position to the Sunrisers Hyderabad this term. They were cut adrift at the bottom of the table and their season was over from a competitive point of view with matches to spare. They didn’t quit on their campaign though and came out of it with a few wins which has restored confidence ahead of this season and they are making the most of it. They are top of the table by two points and can put themselves in a dominant position with a win here.
Chennai look a good side with the bat and the ball. They probably don’t have as many of their top six firing on all cylinders as they would like but they have had enough to storm to the top of the table. The good thing for their batsmen is even if they don’t come up with the sort of results they are hoping for, their bowlers look very assured in these conditions and are proving very difficult to score against. That is never a bad combination.
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Key Men
Jason Roy hit the ground running in his opening match in the UAE leg of the competition. He has been waiting a while to get a chance in this league and you sense he’ll be eager to push on. Sharjah has been a new ball track so far this season so Roy is a big player for the Sunrisers.
Moeen Ali walks in at three for the Chennai Super Kings so he’ll need to get on with his innings before batting becomes very difficult. His overs of off spin will come in handy too against a batting unit that aren’t necessarily the best players of spin.
Betting
Scoring at Sharjah has been very difficult so far this season and I think we can safely say it is down to the pitch now. Kolkata Knight Riders are about as free scoring a side as we’ve seen in this competition and even they laboured with the bat last time out, while the Delhi Capitals are another who have good form with the bat who just couldn’t get going on this ground. Once the new ball has worn off it gets very hard to bat here so I’m not expecting a high scoring match.
You would hope that with a World T20 here next month that the pitches will play a lot better than they currently are at some point but there are no signs of that just yet. The last two matches here have seen 245 and 257 runs respectively and even the first game when the wicket was meant to be at its best had just 313 runs. It has definitely got harder since then and with these two probably better with the ball than the bat I’m not expecting to see more than 310.5 runs in this one.
Tips
Back Under 310.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Betway
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