The Indian Premier League rolls into Hyderabad for the first time in the IPL 2024 season on Wednesday when the Sunrisers Hyderabad welcome the Mumbai Indians for the second game of the campaign for both teams.
Both teams went down narrowly in their first game so they will each be eager to get over the line in this second one and get their campaign up and running in the win column. The loser will start to see the pressure growing which won’t be ideal.
Sunrisers Hyderabad
The Sunrisers Hyderabad went into the season with a lot of questions to answer after a much more ordinary campaign than they should have delivered last term. You get the impression they are a side who desperately need an early win or two to gather momentum because they have been in the doldrums for too long. The last thing they needed then was to run into an Andre Russell power blitz in their opening game which just took the match away from them.
The good thing about this Hyderabad side is they have their own equaliser in the power department in Heinrich Klaasen and he looked in excellent touch immediately but the rest of his teammates struggled with the bat. If Hyderabad are going to be a force in this tournament then they are going to need to find some death bowlers because until Wanindu Hasaranga arrives and is fit to play they have nothing like the quality of spin needed to restrict teams in the middle overs.
Mumbai Indians
It looked like the famous trend of the Mumbai Indians stumbling out of the starting traps would be a thing of the past for much of their opening game against the Gujarat Titans on Sunday but from the depths of the jaws of victory they snatched defeat late on and now you wonder if this will be another campaign where starting slowly becomes the norm for them. It does have to be said that this doesn’t look quite as strong a Mumbai side as some that have gone before it but it is still good enough to be more than competitive.
The big positive for Mumbai this season is the return of Jasprit Bumrah and it didn’t take long for him to show why he is so dearly needed for the Indians. His spell of bowling had the Titans in trouble and they were unable to really get away from them at the back end of the innings. Mumbai will know their batting fell away quite alarmingly under pressure at the death and that is something they will need to think about moving forward.
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Key Players
We saw exactly why Heinrich Klaasen is one of the most feared players in the world in this format in the first game for the Sunrisers Hyderabad. You just wonder if they can find a way to get him into the top four and give him longer to do his thing.
Jasprit Bumrah could be saved for the overs when Klaasen is at the crease and if he can get rid of the South African at any point it would take Mumbai much closer to the winning line given his quality with the ball in hand at the death.
Betting
I expect this one to be a high scoring match but the run line here is a little too high for me to indulge in so I am looking elsewhere for a chance to get involved in some sort of low line which represents the possibility of that high scoring game and in the end the one I like is for Mumbai Indians to have hit more than 50.5 runs when they get to the end of the powerplay, something I like given the aggressive nature of their top four.
To be fair to the Sunrisers, they have a couple of decent new ball bowlers in the form of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Marco Jansen but the latter went around the park in the previous game against an opening pair that is nothing like as established as the one which Mumbai have to offer. The big reason why I like Mumbai to cover this line is because there is no spinner to slow the rate down in the powerplay and while the Sunrisers have the likes of Pat Cummins and T Natarajan to come on later in the opening six overs, Mumbai will have a good pitch and a deep enough line up for them to go big at the beginning. Mumbai lost Ishan Kishan without scoring from four balls against Gujarat and still had 52/2 at the end of the powerplay. I expect them to be in this ball park here too.
Tips
Back Mumbai Indians First 6 Overs – Over 50.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.85 with Betway
