With Covid now more a thing of the past we can get back to getting stuck into player markets ahead of the new IPL 2023 season once again and we’ll begin the look with more than a courteous glance at the top run scorer one.
Jos Buttler had a season to remember with the bat a year ago and he is the favourite to be the top run scorer this time around too. Only Chris Gayle has top scored in consecutive seasons so the England captain would have to defy history to top score again.
Recent Winners
2022 – Jos Buttler
2021 – Ruturaj Gaikwad
2020 – KL Rahul
2019 – Dave Warner
2018 – Kane Williamson
2017 – Dave Warner
2016 – Virat Kohli
2015 – Dave Warner
2014 – Robin Uthappa
2013 – Michael Hussey
Market Leaders
Jos Buttler scored well over 800 runs for the Rajasthan Royals last season and he is the 5/1 favourite to top score this term as well. The immediate positive for Buttler backers is that he doesn’t play Test cricket for England anymore so he will be around for the entire tournament. His team are expected to go well too and he has been in excellent form for England throughout the summer and went pretty well at the SA20 tournament. He looks a worthy favourite.
Virat Kohli will have something to say about it though and he is 6/1 to top score for the first time since 2016. The immediate and obvious question mark over him is where he is going to bat. I would like him a lot more if he is going to open the batting for Bangalore but if he bats at three then he might be a little on the short side. I also wonder if he is not a little bit of a thing of the past and that the up and coming batters are the better option.
KL Rahul is a touch bigger around the 13/2 mark and he has been a consistent run machine in the IPL recently despite moving teams in that time. I’m always a little wary about taking a captain in this thing because T20 can get crazy at the best of times let alone when you have to think about keeping wicket as well, although it might be that Quinton de Kock is in good enough form that he plays as a keeper. That will help but he still has to think about a lot which might affect his batting at some point.
Shubman Gill has slotted into the Indian teams perfectly and he had a brilliant season for the Gujarat Titans a year ago. He is an opening batter in great form and one who can play the anchor role for the likes of Hardik Pandya and David Miller to bat around. Those kind of players can accumulate a lot of runs and Gill was fifth in the run scoring a year ago. I suspect the Titans would need to reach the postseason for Gill to be that high again but he certainly can’t be dismissed lightly even at a price shorter than 10/1.
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Profile
We need to whittle the field down. There are over 50 batsmen who are going to play regularly in this tournament and we can’t be backing all of them so let us apply some filters to try and get it to a more manageable level. Clearly the first thing we can do is get rid of anyone from side we don’t think will make the play-offs. Depending on where a team finishes their players could get up to three more innings to make a difference and that is significant.
Once we’ve done that we can further chop the field down by looking at batting position. I think the longer this tournament goes on the harder it is going to be to score deeper into the innings. I wouldn’t want to be backing anyone not in the top three but preferably it would be an opening batsman. The other thing is he must be able to play spin as that has been pretty prominent in this part of the world over the last couple of months. The other thing to take into account is the home ground. A player who bats on a small batting paradise like the Wankhede or Chinnaswamy as a home venue is going to have a better chance than someone who plays on tricky tracks in say Chennai or Delhi.
Betting
I like the look of Mumbai Indians this season and so I’m going to take a couple of players from that franchise in this market. I’m actually going to go against my profile above because my main bet is going to be Suryakumar Yadav. He might actually work his way up to bat at three and if he does then I’m certainly not going to be complaining but even if he is at four he scores so quickly he can make it look like he is in the top three. The Wankhede is certainly not big enough to contain him and one of the away matches he has is in Bangalore and another in Mohali. Yadav has a T20I strike rate of 175.76 and that’s pretty much the scoring rate he scores at in domestic cricket these days too. He was restricted to eight matches last season but scored more than 300 runs so in a full season that is a 600 run campaign and he’s probably a better player now. At 14/1 I think he’s a huge runner.
I’ll also have the tiniest dabble on his teammate Cameron Green who I think has been signed to open the batting as well as the bowling and go very hard with the bat like he did when Australia were in India for a T20 series prior to the World Cup last year. Green made 118 runs in 55 balls in that series with a strike rate of 214.54 with 16 fours and seven sixes. If he hits the ball here like he did in that series and he does open the batting right from the start then he is entitled to have a pretty decent season. If he does open the batting he’ll be given the licence to swing with freedom and might just come off enough to go well at a frankly bonkers price.
Tips
Back S.Yadav Top Tournament Run Scorer (e/w) for a 1.5/10 stake at 15.00 with Boylesports (1/4 1-5)
Back him here:
Back C.Green Top Tournament Run Scorer (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 126.00 with BetVictor (1/4 1-4)
Back him here:
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