The Indian Premier League run in continues on Wednesday when two sides in the top half of the table meet in what could be a pivotal clash in the competition for so many teams as the Rajasthan Royals take on the Delhi Capitals at the DY Patil Stadium.
The Royals are looking good things for a top four spot and can go a long way to securing that with a win here, and in fact they would then be pushing for the top two. Delhi need to win out from here but their net run rate gives them every chance if they can manage to do that.
Rajasthan Royals
The Rajasthan Royals have been in and around the top four for the whole of the campaign so far so their next task is to ensure that they don’t fade away at the last minute and undo all of their good work. I think most have worked on the consensus that eight wins will be enough to extend a season which means Rajasthan need just one victory from their final three matches but the earlier they can get it the better their chances of chasing a top two spot will be.
Rajasthan looked like they were having a bit of a late season wobble last week but a good win over the Punjab Kings at the weekend came at the right time. That was the first time in four outings that their batters had passed 160 with the bat and that is a target they need to reach as often as possible. I always thought that as these wickets started to tire Rajasthan would be even stronger with the power they have with the bat and the quality spin options they can call upon.
Delhi Capitals
The Delhi Capitals just haven’t been able to find any consistency at all in this campaign. We are 11 matches into their season and they still haven’t been able to win successive matches. They now know that in order to have any chance of extending their season they are going to have to put three victories in a row together and based on what we’ve seen so far from them that looks unlikely. They haven’t been helped with having to change their team regularly but this squad is performing nowhere near the levels of last term.
Their seam bowlers haven’t really come to the party this season. Anrich Nortje came into the competition with the back end of an injury and his absence for much of the campaign has been felt. The same can be said of Mitchell Marsh who only now is getting up to speed and so many players outside of their openers haven’t been in great form. The Capitals have to find a way to restrict the opposition because in four of their last five matches they have shipped 185 or more.
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Key Players
Yuzvendra Chahal should come into his own in this competition from here on in with the wickets clearly tiring and beginning to play up a little. There are three notable hitters in the Delhi side who don’t play spin brilliantly so his four overs could be crucial.
If the Delhi Capitals are going to win this match they need early wickets, particularly the one of Jos Buttler. He doesn’t play left arm spin particularly well so it might be that Delhi need to think out of the box and give Axar Patel the new ball. He might well be needed with the bat too.
Betting
The DY Patil Stadium isn’t a particularly high scoring ground but the boundaries do tend to flow here although the fact that the last two second innings scores here have been 117 and 113 suggests that the pitches here are dry and tired and completely fade the longer the match goes on. That makes me think that 42.5 boundaries line might be a little on the high side. I don’t think the wicket is going to be conducive to confident big hitting batting but there are a couple of other reasons why that might be the case.
The first of those is because these two sides have bowling units who should be able to make full use of what is in the wicket, whether that is with cutters from the seamers or spin from the spinners. The other thing to note is that both of these teams have a bowling all-rounder coming in at seven and Rajasthan might even have one coming in earlier than that with them having to replace Shimron Hetmyer. That might restrict the free flowing batting with both of them needing to avoid being three down early. The boundaries might still come but 42.5 feels a little on the high side with the way the wickets are losing their pace.
Tips
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