The Indian Premier League heads back to Eden Gardens on Monday for the one match in the IPL 2024 season which sees the Kolkata Knight Riders playing host to a Delhi Capitals outfit who have suddenly caught fire.
These two teams are part of the logjam on 10 points heading into what feels like an important week of action so the loser won’t be out of the competition or anything but the winner will do their top four hopes the world of good.
Kolkata Knight Riders
The Kolkata Knight Riders were stunned by a quite remarkable run chase in their previous match which has put them to 5-3 on their overall ledger. They are still in a good position in the table and if eight wins are the number to get into the finals then they only need to win half of their remaining matches to get in, although from the start to the campaign that they have had they will be eager to finish a lot better than just limping into the top four.
Their batting has been awesome throughout the season. They have regularly put up more than 200 runs when they have been batting first but every now and again their bowling can go around the park, especially if they don’t pick up wickets early on. Once a team gets on top of them when they are bowling the wheels can come off quite quickly and that will need to be rectified if they are going to launch a push for the title.
Delhi Capitals
The Delhi Capitals have offered much more than we have come accustomed to seeing from them and all of a sudden they have five wins to their name. They have played two more matches than the Knight Riders and more than anyone else in the top six in the table heading into this one so this match might be more important for them than it is for the Knight Riders. Whereas Kolkata have to win three from six, Delhi need three wins from four and maybe even more than that given their run rate is the worst of those chasing a playoff spot.
The Capitals are really hitting their stride with the bat. Much like their opponents here, they probably aren’t convincing as much as they would have wanted with the ball all of a sudden but we know they have it in them because earlier in the campaign they were one of the best sides with the ball in the powerplay. They need to get back to finding powerplay wickets and if they can do that there is so much confidence running through their batting unit that you would expect them to win more often than not.
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Key Players
Sunil Narine might well be the MVP in the tournament at the minute. He is scoring freely at the top of the innings with the bat and he is still wily with the ball. I wonder if he’ll start to be used more in the powerplay with the ball to force the run rate required up a notch.
Jake Fraser-McGurk is well and truly announcing himself as the next Australian superstar. He is seemingly unaware of fielders at the minute because he is just blasting everything to the boundary and if he gets going here Kolkata could be in trouble.
Betting
I’ve said a few times in recent previews that the sixes lines are getting to the stage where I am struggling to be interested in them but even at 22.5 that isn’t the case here. Eden Gardens has been an absolute road this season. There have been five matches on this ground this season and both teams have scored over 200 in four of them and in the other one Kolkata were on 162/2 with 26 balls left when they reached their target so you have to think they would have scored 200 then too.
Those four matches have yielded sixes totals of 29, 21, 24 and a pretty ridiculous 42. That immediately interests me in the sixes, especially when you consider that in their last two matches Delhi have hit 16 and 17 in their own batting innings. Anything over 11 from them here and we’re well on track for the over to cover. When you factor in that the reverse meeting between these two yielded 29 sixes on a bigger ground than this one we have here, the over looks the bet.
Tips
Back Over 22.5 sixes for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with William Hill
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