The Major League Cricket season continues to head towards a conclusion of the league phase of the campaign with a do or die clash for the bottom two in the MLC 2025 table when the Los Angeles Knight Riders face the MI New York on Thursday night.
These two have sat back and watched the Seattle Orcas steal a march on them in the race for the last spot in the top four and whoever loses this will be pretty much out of contention for that position so this is a huge game.
Los Angeles Knight Riders
The Los Angeles Knight Riders go into this match sitting bottom of the table with one win in seven matches and it is hard to argue that they deserve anything other than that position. They have the worst net run rate of anyone in the competition by a fair distance and that is often a good guide of where a team is at. The only positive for them is that if they win this match they are only two points behind Seattle with two games to play so they could yet reel them in.
They are going to need a huge improvement on what they have shown in Oakland and Dallas though. They might have struck gold with the early signs being that the ball is going to stick in the pitch a little more in Florida and that should bring the likes of Sunil Narine and Tanveer Sangha into the game. That will be needed because their batters have suddenly clicked into gear in the last two matches but the bowlers didn’t turn up to support them and they lost both games despite posting 200 on each occasion.
MI New York
I don’t think there would have been anyone who would have expected the MI New York side to be on one win from seven matches when they set out in the competition but that is the record they are carrying to Florida with them. They will know they should have had more wins than that because they have coughed up a couple of matches which they were in control of, or in a position where they should have been able to control things from where they were.
The New York batting has come to life again in recent times and the fact that Nicholas Pooran is having a big impact with the bat all of a sudden is certainly no bad thing. The big problem is that their bowling has had a cannon fodder look about it. They will hope that the different look to the Florida pitch will assist their bowlers and bring them into the game a little more and if it does then New York have the potential to be dangerous here.
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Key Players
Los Angeles Knight Riders moved Andre Russell up to number three in the last match and it might be that he goes up the order again in a move which would give him freedom to explode into life knowing there is plenty of depth behind him should it not come off.
Nicholas Pooran has also moved himself up the order for the MI New York side and in any match when he clicks and spends time at the crease he is capable of putting his team right into a position of strength. They will hope that happens here.
Betting
I was looking at opposing the runs in this match but the line has dropped to a number which is closer to where I’m not quite as comfortable so rather than oppose it that way I will take under 49.5 boundaries which feels a pretty high line based on the only completed match here having just 38 boundaries in a game which had two pretty aggressive batting units on show and not much in the way of tricky bowlers to face.
I mentioned it on Wednesday night but the outfield here looked very sluggish in that opening game and the rain that we have had since then isn’t going to have done anything to speed it up so opposing boundaries makes sense. There are a few mystery spinners on show here and a couple of batting units who are better suited to the ball coming onto the bat which isn’t guaranteed here either. When you weight it all up I’m not sure at all that we get to 50 boundaries.
Tips
Back Under 49.5 boundaries for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Bet365
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