We are approaching the business end of the Indian Premier League now and the IPL 2023 season continues on Friday when the Mumbai Indians take on the Gujarat Titans in a clash which could have implications on the top four race.
The Titans can secure a top two spot and give themselves two chances of making the final with a win here while Mumbai will be looking to consolidate their position in the top four but need to win to keep the chasing pack at bay.
Mumbai Indians
It has taken a while but the Mumbai Indians are beginning to look like the team which we expect them to be each season. When we think of a Mumbai side we think of power with the bat throughout the innings and shot making which puts the fear into the opposing bowlers and we expect their opening bowlers to set the tone and make the opposition have to play catch up from an early stage in proceedings. That is roughly where we are with them.
The positive for the Indians is that there is more to come from them too. Rohit Sharma hasn’t got going at all in this tournament and there is Tilak Varma to come back from injury as well. The negative is that the loss of Jofra Archer from the bowling unit leaves that part of their team looking very exposed, although to be fair to those bowlers there isn’t much for them at the Wankhede at the best of times so it might be no bad thing that this is likely to be a shootout.
Gujarat Titans
The Gujarat Titans are putting together a very good title defence and they have the chance to wrap up a top two finish with two matches to spare which kind of shows how far clear of the rest in the league they have been this season. Unlike their opponents here, their strength has been with the ball. They have two of the higher wicket takers in the tournament this season in their ranks and they have ripped top and middle orders apart regularly.
The longer the tournament has gone on the better the Gujarat batting has been. I don’t think they have the longest batting unit in the competition but they have a top five who are all scoring good runs and that is probably the biggest thing. They still have players down the order who can hang around and give them a chance of being competitive if the top order does fail but they haven’t been called upon that often such is how well the top players are batting.
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Key Players
We saw all of the brilliance of Suryakumar Yadav in the previous match for the Mumbai Indians and if they are going to win this match then this classy batter will need to be at his best against this top drawer bowling unit.
The only way to slow down this Mumbai Indians batting is to take early wickets so that they have to use a few overs to rebuild things ahead of doing some collateral damage at the end. Mohammad Shami has been a machine in the powerplay and he might need to be again here.
Betting
I’m not a massive fan of taking sixes lines which are heading up towards the 20 mark but I think an exception has to be made here just because of the makeup of this Mumbai Indians side. The last four matches on this ground have had each score at 185 or higher and the sixes totals in those games have been 23, 25, 22 and 21. It is fair to say that Gujarat aren’t the biggest six hitting side in the world but the way the ball flies at the Wankhede I expect them to join the six hitting party.
There were 21 sixes when these two met in Ahmedabad and the Mumbai batting has caught fire since then, particularly Suryakumar Yadav and this ground certainly isn’t big enough to contain him. The sixes line for this match is 17.5 which is a fair bit below the numbers we have seen on this ground recently. The last game had 21 sixes and there was no Tilak Varma and Rohit Sharma, Tim David and Cameron Green faced 11 balls between them and didn’t hit a six so there is a lot more six hitting potential to come here. We’re at the stage where Mumbai might look to chase a score down quickly if the chance arises to sort their run rate out so I’m just about comfortable taking the over on this line on this ground.
Tips
Back Over 17.5 sixes for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Betway
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