The second part of the double header of action in the Indian Premier League on Saturday sees the Lucknow Super Giants and the Delhi Capitals beginning their IPL campaigns when the two sides meet in Lucknow.
Both of these teams will have an eye on reaching the playoffs and launching a title tilt this term but both have had issues in their build-up to the season so it will be fascinating to see who puts that behind them and gets off to a winning start.
Lucknow Super Giants
The Lucknow Super Giants reached the postseason on their debut in the tournament a year ago but couldn’t get the better of the Royal Challengers Bangalore when they got there. Nevertheless, that was a positive campaign and should have given them a lot of positivity to take into this season with them with a squad which now knows each other a lot more and should in theory naturally improve as this campaign goes along.
The one issue the Super Giants have in this opening match of their season is there will be no Quinton de Kock available to them. They always had cover in the keeper department with KL Rahul around but it will be interesting to see how they build their side for this first game. There is a strong argument for using an overseas player as their Impact Player because the lack of an elite all-rounder is a bit of an issue for this team unless Marcus Stoinis is at full bowling capacity.
Delhi Capitals
The Delhi Capitals would have been expecting to make the playoffs last season but missed out by one place. They were the casualty in the format shake up because often 10 team leagues have five teams making the playoffs. That agonising missing out last term should put the fuel in the fire for the Capitals this term but they’ve had their preparations hampered throughout once news broke of a serious crash involving their captain Rishabh Pant.
Dave Warner will take on the captaincy of the side but there is a suggestion that he might not be the run machine of a couple of seasons ago and even if he is having an overseas captain is never ideal because it is so restrictive of the other overseas options. Two of those options will miss this first match as Lungi Ngidi and Anrich Nortje are both away on international duty so the home bowlers are going to need to step up for the Capitals.
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Key Players
KL Rahul probably would have been a key player for the Lucknow Super Giants regardless of whether Quinton de Kock was here or not but as opening batter, keeper and captain his workload is certainly going to be heavy in this match.
Rovman Powell showed last season that he has the ability to win IPL matches on his own with the bat and with the Delhi Capitals missing some key bowlers every run he can eek out of the innings at the end will be very welcome.
Betting
This has not been an easy ground to bat at this year. There was a T20 international here earlier in the year where New Zealand were not bowled out but couldn’t topple the 100 mark and the score only got chased down right at the death and then in the Syed Mushtaq Trophy there have been 14 matches played on this ground and only two scores have gone past 165 in all of those matches. There were some seriously low scores in those games too such as 100/6, 106/9, 86, 52 and 58.
I think based on that evidence if we are expecting the batters to have it all their own way in this match we might be barking up the wrong tree. When I look at the two batting units there are a lot of players on show such as Dave Warner, Mitch Marsh, Nicholas Pooran, Kyle Mayers, Marcus Stoinis and Rovman Powell who are all more comfortable doing their thing when there is no gremlins in the wicket and there are three gun spinners and a couple of reliable seamers in the two units. When you piece it all together it feels like the 331.5 run line is grossly high unless something dramatic has happened to the pitches in the last couple of months.
Tips
Back Under 331.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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