The final round of matches in the Indian Premier League continues with a double header of action on Saturday which begins in Delhi when the Chennai Super Kings look to seal their spot in the IPL 2023 playoffs when they meet the Delhi Capitals.
In order to guarantee a spot in the postseason the Super Kings must win this match. If they do that they will be in the box seat for a top two spot. They can still go through with a loss but need others to lose. Delhi end their campaign here.
Delhi Capitals
This is going to go down as yet another disappointing campaign for the Delhi Capitals. There are mitigating circumstances such as the Rishabh Pant injury which caused a serious overhaul to their plans but at the end of the day they have not been good enough and their big players collectively haven’t come to the party enough. It all means that their season will end here but they should be determined to finish off with a win particularly in front of a home crowd.
When the close season comes around the Capitals need to recruit much better for home conditions or make sure the pitches for next season have the ball coming onto the bat a bit more especially if the Impact player rule comes back next term. They could also do with having another gun overseas bowler in case Anrich Nortje breaks down again. Not having an overseas captain will give them much more flexibility too so that is another thing they need to address.
Chennai Super Kings
The Chennai Super Kings have had a good season and sit second in the table heading into this final round of matches. Any team wants to be in control of their own destiny this late in the season and the Super Kings, who know exactly how to deliver the goods this late in the campaign, are very much that both in terms of the number of points they have and their better net run rate than those teams who are looking to chase them down this late in the piece.
It has been a bit of a season of two halves for the Super Kings. In the first half of the campaign their batters had to carry the slack but in more recent times their bowlers have come to the fore. That switch has coincided with the return to action of Deepak Chahar who is allowing MS Dhoni to assume some control in the opening period of the bowling innings before allowing his spinners to go to work and put the squeeze on. Chennai are going well.
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Key Players
You would think the way that this match is going to play out that if the Delhi Capitals are going to come out on top in it then Axar Patel might need to have a big say with either the bat or the ball, or preferably both.
There is a flaky look about the Delhi Capitals down the order and the top order isn’t as strong in depth as they might like so if Deepak Chahar can take a couple of early poles then he could put the Super Kings in a commanding position.
Betting
I’m not always one for backing a side with the competitive edge to them against the team who are free rolling but I would be surprised if the Chennai Super Kings mess this one up. Usually they are a team who dominate at home and then pick up what they can away but they have won three of the five completed matches on their travels this season and of all the teams in the competition I believe they have the side most suited to these day matches.
The Chennai Super Kings have already beaten the Delhi Capitals comfortably this term and that was when Delhi had their four star overseas batters playing. Those batters are so much better on pitches where the bat comes onto the ball and it is no surprise that the Capitals have only won two of their six home games, one against Kolkata who have stunk the place out too often this season and the other against Bangalore who threw in a terrible bowling performance. I just don’t see Chennai bowling that badly here and even if they do we saw earlier in the campaign that their batting can score big.
Tips
Back Chennai Super Kings (-3.5wickets/7.5runs) to beat Delhi Capitals for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Bet365
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