The Indian Premier League returns on Friday and the opening match of the IPL 2024 season sees the Chennai Super Kings beginning the defence of their title when they go up against the Royal Challengers Bangalore in Chennai.
The Super Kings are now one of the two best franchises in the competition having won this title five times and they will be looking for a sixth this term. Bangalore are one of the biggest underachievers in the tournament history and they go in search of an elusive maiden crown.
Chennai Super Kings
The Chennai Super Kings are probably the most settled of the Indian Premier League franchises hence their status as five time winners. They are settled in terms of the fact that they rarely do too much upheaving of their squad, have had the same coach since the tournament started and have a home ground where the conditions rarely change which allows them to get a squad which fits surroundings when they are at the auction.
They have made a key change heading into this season though with MS Dhoni having passed on the captaincy to Ruturaj Gaikwad and it will be interesting to see how they go with that change. The other thing that they need to do is find a new opener after Devon Conway was ruled out of the tournament with injury. One of the backgrounds of the Chennai success has been their opening partnership which gives their middle order the potential to flourish.
Royal Challengers Bangalore
Every year that passes without the Royal Challengers Bangalore winning this tournament, the more the pressure begins to ramp up on them and it will be interesting to see how they handle that this season, particularly when you consider that Bangalore didn’t even make the playoffs last season. One reason for all this disappointment despite the riches spent on their squad is that their home ground is a graveyard for bowlers, but this competition has been in situ long enough for them to have come up with a plan for that.
Bangalore couldn’t find a middle order for love nor money last season and if they are going to have better success this time around then they need their back end of the innings to perform so much better with the bat, especially in line with the fact that the ground is so hard to defend which means bigger scores tend to come in Bangalore. The other issue they have is they lack a top class spin option to take advantage of conditions such as these.
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Key Players
All eyes will be on Ruturaj Gaikwad to see how he performs with the bat with the weight of captaincy on top of him for the first time. He will also be assessed with how he does as a captain too so there is a lot on his shoulders here.
Virat Kohli returns to competitive cricket in this match after a couple of months away from the scene and all eyes will be on him to see how he fares in his first game back. Simple logic would suggest he might need an innings or two to find his timing again.
Betting
I’m very surprised that you can get 4/5 on the Chennai Super Kings winning this match. I can only assume that is because of the late change in captaincy and while I agree that isn’t ideal, it isn’t as though Ruturaj Gaikwad doesn’t have the likes of Ajinkya Rahane, Moeen Ali and MS Dhoni himself to call upon in the field should he need it. They have all captained plenty of matches so he isn’t going to be completely alone in his first IPL captaincy role.
Chennai Super Kings always match up well to their home conditions and I don’t think Bangalore are as good in these sorts of environments. Their batters by and large want the ball coming onto the bat, with the one who doesn’t need that being Virat Kohli who has been out of the game for a couple of months. They don’t really have a superstar spinner and their power hitters or finishers tend to be overseas ones who might struggle. As long as Gaikwad does nothing daft on his captaincy bow I expect the Chennai title defence to begin with a win.
Tips
Back Chennai Super Kings to beat Royal Challengers Bangalore for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with William Hill
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