The Major League Cricket competition continues on Sunday night when we head back to Dallas to see the San Francisco Unicorns for the first time this term when they go up against the Los Angeles Knight Riders.
The Knight Riders have already played a match this season and they have won it in impressive fashion. They will go in search of two in a row but the Unicorns will be out to stop them as they look to put a better campaign together than they did last term.
San Francisco Unicorns
The San Francisco Unicorns missed out on the postseason last year on net run rate so they will be fired up to go better than that this time around. They open their season against the only team who finished below them a year ago so they probably know that this is a match they have to win, albeit the Indian Premier League side affiliated with Los Angeles won that tournament this year so they are naturally going to be a better outfit this time around.
The Unicorns do bring a better looking squad to the party with them, particularly in the form of explosive batters so they will probably be delighted that they open their tournament in Dallas where the wicket looks to be playing much better. They have added some depth to the bowling as well and that is going to be important when they have to play over at Morrisville but for this match you would imagine it will be their power batting that has to come good.
Los Angeles Knight Riders
When the Los Angeles Knight Riders were 5-2 approaching the end of the third over in their opening game, their supporters could be forgiven for thinking here we go again after they were rooted to the foot of the table in the inaugural season of this competition. There is a real confidence throughout the Knight Riders brand at the minute though and they came good in the second part of the innings to post a competitive total.
We knew it anyway but we were given a reminder in that first game that the bowling unit for the Knight Riders is so strong that they don’t need to be blasting over par totals to win matches. That might have been the case in the Indian Premier League where the impact player rule was in place but won’t be necessary in this tournament. If they do happen to put up huge scores then the Los Angeles side can feel very good about their chances.
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Key Players
Pat Cummins has signed a four-year deal with the San Francisco Unicorns side so they are clearly looking to build their franchise around the Australian red ball captain. He could do with a positive start in the San Francisco orange.
Unmukt Chand reminded everyone of his quality in the opening match of the tournament for the Los Angeles Knight Riders and the man given the task of number three and being the one the power hitters bat around could have a big role to play here.
Betting
I think there is scope for a number of boundaries in this match. The San Francisco Unicorns have added Pat Cummins to their bowling resources but they still look a little light in that department whereas their batting looks full of power. The Knight Riders look much stronger of the two with the ball but there is no getting away from the power and quality that they have with the bat either when you consider that Andre Russell batted at seven in the opening game.
The boundaries line for this match sits at 37.5 which doesn’t feel very high considering what we saw here in the World Cup and also in the opening match. Los Angeles were 5-2 and 44-3 in that match and yet there were still 38 boundaries and there is so much more to come from the Knight Riders when you consider that Jason Roy, Sunil Narine and David Miller all failed to hit a boundary and Andre Russell only faced five balls. San Francisco are going to go hard with the bat so over 37.5 boundaries feels good to me here.
Tips
Back Over 37.5 boundaries for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
