We have another double header of action in the Indian Premier League on Sunday as the Rajasthan Royals and the Lucknow Super Giants open up their IPL 2024 season in the first part of a decent looking day of cricket.
Lucknow reached the postseason for a second year in a row last term and will be wanting to get their again. Just net run rate denied Rajasthan another shot at the finals and they will be eager to make up for that this time around.
Rajasthan Royals
The Rajasthan Royals were the inaugural winners of this tournament but they haven’t been able to get their hands on the trophy since then, although they made it all the way to the final two seasons ago before their net run rate cost them last term. That would have been annoying because they started last season with four wins from their opening five matches but we unable to sustain that and faded away a little too tamely in the second part of the season.
Rajasthan begin this campaign with a lot of home matches in quick succession due to the elections in this part of the world likely to force them on the road in the second half of the season so they need to get off to a good start this time around. They haven’t been helped by the late withdrawal from the event of Adam Zampa, but Yuzvendra Chahal and R Ashwin do at least offer decent spin options. Rajasthan look packed with power with the bat and should take some beating.
Lucknow Super Giants
The Lucknow Super Giants have started their existence with a couple of playoff campaigns but haven’t got their hands on the title. That probably wouldn’t have been an issue had the team they came into the league with not already got their hands on the gold. Lucknow can only control what they can do though and really you sense it is just a little luck here and there which has been missing. They certainly look to have the squad to do the business this season.
If there is a question mark over this side it might well come in the form of their overseas bowling options. Mark Wood withdrew from the competition and he was going to be the speedster. The probably they have with the ball is there is likely to only be room for one international bowler as Quinton de Kock, Nicholas Pooran and Marcus Stoinis look likely to be automatic picks. They need an Indian seamer to be counted.
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Key Players
Yashasvi Jaiswal has seen his stock rise alarmingly since the last time he played in the Indian Premier League and under the scrutiny of this competition it will be interesting to see how he handles himself at the top of the order.
Nicholas Pooran has built up a reputation for smashing bowling attacks all over the place all around the world and having already seen his West Indies teammate Andre Russell go mad on Saturday he’ll be looking to follow suit.
Betting
We have seen a couple of high scoring matches in this tournament so far and I expect this one to be another of them. There is no doubt in my mind that the batters are the better unit for both of these teams and the wicket in Jaipur is nearly always good for batting and with a lot of matches here in a short period of time I would be surprised if this is anything different to that. This is a day match as well so there are no issues with dew and things.
The boundaries line for this match is 39.5 which feels a low line. This isn’t the smallest ground in terms of boundary size but the outfield here is usually lightning fast and we have so many clean hitting batters on show here that we won’t even need all of them to come to the fore for this line to be covered. With a bunch of players who have been in decent form so far in 2024 in action here I’m expecting this line to be broken before the final bowl is bowled.
Tips
Back Over 39.5 boundaries for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Bet365
