Two sides who were beaten in their opening match in the Indian Premier League meet on Saturday hoping to get their first win of the IPL 2025 season when the Gujarat Titans host the Mumbai Indians in Ahmedabad.
Gujarat went down in a very high scoring match but that was on this ground which might give them some sort of advantage. Mumbai were beaten on a slow deck in Chennai and will be relishing more favourable conditions here.
Gujarat Titans
The Gujarat Titans went into the season looking to make up for failing to make the postseason for the first time last term. I wouldn’t say that they were hugely fancied runners this term but they were one of the sides who if they played well and things fell into line who could do the business and push for a top four spot. Their batting was generally regarded as being more than acceptable but the question came over a bowling unit, which on paper looked good, but had lost some key components.
That bowling fear has already come back to haunt them as they were torn apart by the Punjab Kings in their opening match and while their batters did all that they could to get them out of a hole, the damage had already been done. It goes without saying that the Titans bowling will need to go much better here and having had a run out in the tournament there probably isn’t much of an excuse not to perform. The positive is that if they do they know their batting looks in decent touch.
Mumbai Indians
This is yet another season where the Mumbai Indians have lost their opening game. That is 13 on the spin now so this isn’t a situation that they aren’t accustomed to but once again they have put a little pressure on themselves to get up and running for the campaign here and just take some of the heat off their shoulders. One thing which will help is the return of their captain Hardik Pandya who had to serve a held over suspension from last season in the opening match.
The big thing which will help the Mumbai Indians though is playing on a pitch where the ball will come onto the bat a lot more. They were clearly inconvenienced by the lack of pace in the pick in Chennai and it was probably no surprise that the most comfortable player they had with the bat was the man who has spent his career with the Chennai Super Kings. Mumbai can probably bowl better than they did in Chennai but they have to bat so much better here.
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Key Players
Sai Sudharsan hit the ground running in the opening match for the Punjab Kings and he’ll be aiming to go well again in this match as well. He will need to keep going because there will be questions over the makeup of this top three if they keep starting slowly.
Hardik Pandya will probably know he isn’t exactly Mr Popular in this part of the world having left the Gujarat Titans to head back to the Mumbai Indians last season but on his seasonal debut he will look to use that to fuel him with the bat and the ball.
Betting
Depending on where you shop you can get a sixes line at 18.5 or 19.5. I wouldn’t put anyone who can only get the 19.5 from getting stuck in but clearly we are going to attack the lower line. The first thing to note is in the opening match on this ground there were 32 sixes and that was with the Punjab Kings as the visitors. I don’t think the Mumbai Indians are any less of a hitting side, although to be fair they will offer more with the ball than Punjab were able to.
Even so, when Shreyas Iyer was hitting nine sixes here the other night we know that it isn’t a big ground and that the pitch was playing nicely because you wouldn’t accustom him for being a slogger by any stretch of the imagination. Gujarat hit 16 of those sixes so if they land anywhere in that ball park for the number then we won’t need much from the Mumbai Indians at all but a side that has Rohit Sharma, Ryan Rickleton, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma and Hardik Pandya among others in it are sure to add to the six scoring. I like the over here.
Tips
Back Over 18.5 sixes for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Bet365
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