We reach the halfway point of the Indian Premier League regular season on Tuesday when the defending champions Gujarat Titans host the Mumbai Indians in the latest offering in the IPL 2023 campaign.
These two teams are in the logjam of sides who are battling for the top four. Gujarat can separate themselves with a win here while Mumbai will close in further in on where they want to be should they come out on top.
Gujarat Titans
I think it is fair to say that the Gujarat Titans haven’t looked quite as convincing as they did last season but expectancy brings pressure so that is probably no huge surprise. They still have four wins from their opening six matches, which as we all know would have been five from six had they not run into that incredible ending from Rinku Singh when they faced the Kolkata Knight Riders. Despite that loss, the Titans are nicely placed to launch a successful title campaign.
We are still looking for the big players to come to the party for the Gujarat Titans. They are serving themselves well with the ball, with the likes of Mohammad Shami and Rashid Khan delivering the goods, but with the bat, especially in those middle overs, things have been a little underwhelming. They have enough power at the top and the end of the innings to catch up but if they can just sort those middle overs out then they would be in title winning shape once again.
Mumbai Indians
We got the seemingly traditional slow start from the Mumbai Indians when they went down in their opening two matches but they have won three out of four since then and are just beginning to go through the gears and click into the powerful machine which often dominates the second part of an Indian Premier League season. A win here would give them a fourth win from seven matches and it would be a surprise were they not to reach the postseason from there.
If Mumbai are going to push on and reach the top four this term then their seriously powerful top six will need to continue to deliver the goods. This is a bat heavy team and their bowling isn’t in the same league as their batting, particularly while Jofra Archer is getting up to speed. Mumbai are going to be involved in a lot of high scoring matches but that might just suit them fine with big hitters from one to seven in their order.
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Key Players
Hardik Pandya promoted himself to number three in the previous match and duly clubbed 66 from 50 balls which was the difference between winning and losing. If he can come to the party with the ball too then Gujarat are in business.
Cameron Green is becoming a big player for the Mumbai Indians. Not only is he starting to deposit the ball out of the park in the manner we expected him to when he was signed but he is going to be a key cog in a weaker than hoped bowling unit too.
Betting
This ground in Ahmedabad has thrown up a number of sixes this season and with the Mumbai Indians in town I don’t expect to see anything different here, even allowing for the fact that the Gujarat Titans haven’t really got going in the six hitting department just yet. If they do then we could well see a mountain of sixes in this match if the first three games on this ground are anything to go by, where we have seen totals of 21, 22 and 22 so far.
Only one of those matches have seen a total above 200 achieved so it isn’t like they have all been high scoring either which makes the potential for sixes even greater. While Gujarat have been better with the ball than the bat, they have still surrendered a number of sixes and against this Mumbai top order that trend should continue. There will be chances for the Gujarat batters to go big as well though so based on what we’ve seen in the tournament to date over 16.5 sixes looks a decent bet here.
Tips
Back Over 16.5 sixes for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with BetVictor
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