We have our first double header of the Major League Cricket season on Saturday with the opening two of the two seeing the Los Angeles Knight Riders getting their MLC 2025 campaign started when they face the San Francisco Unicorns.
The Unicorns have already played a match in the competition which they obliterated the Washington Freedom in and they will be looking for a second win in quick succession here. Los Angeles will be out to start with a win of their own.
San Francisco Unicorns
We went into the season not knowing fully what to expect from the San Francisco Unicorns given that they are going to be without their marquee signing Pat Cummins for it but any concerns that people had over them were well and truly answered in the opening game as they delivered one of the most emphatic wins ever seen in any franchise competition let alone this one. It was a brutal assault from start to finish and similar here would be very welcome.
The match was as good as won with the bat against the Freedom in the opening game and we saw in dominant fashion that if it all comes together for the Unicorns with the bat they are going to be a quite fearsome team this term. The questions came with the ball in hand but they answered those too, although whether they will be quite so good without such a total on the board remains to be seen. We might get that question answered here.
Los Angeles Knight Riders
If the Los Angeles Knight Riders thought that they could play their way into this tournament without too much trouble they will now know that isn’t going to be the case. The good thing for them is that they have been able to watch the opening two matches and go about formulating some plans and they have had the extra couple of days for their players who have been representing other teams in recent times to arrive in America ahead of this one.
The Knight Riders will be without a couple of their West Indies contingent who are watching the rain fall over in Ireland but they look to have enough firepower with the bat to be more than competitive here. They will need to show that they have not just the heat with the ball to keep San Francisco honest but also the nous too. At their best, there is nothing to suggest that the Los Angeles side can’t come out on top here but they’ll need to hit the ground running you feel.
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Key Players
It doesn’t take a genius to put Finn Allen up in this slot for this match. The New Zealand international sent records tumbling on Thursday night when he smashed everything he saw into the stands in an incredible showing. The Knight Riders are in trouble if he gets going again.
Sunil Narine could be one man with the ability to slow down Allen when he has the ball in hand but he also has the firepower to deliver a batting onslaught similar to the one which we saw in that opening game so he is key for the Knight Riders.
Betting
I got done up on the sixes in this competition on Friday night when for some reason the MI New York side containing plenty of hitters in their ranks decided to smack 21 fours and only five sixes on a ground where it looked impossible to hit fours over sixes in the first game here. I’m going to go in on the sixes again here though because both of these sides are full of power with the bat and the dimensions of this ground very much yield itself to sixes.
If we avoid the 19 sixes that come off Finn Allen’s bat in the opening game, San Francisco Unicorns still hit nine others and they conceded 12 themselves, 11 of which came in the first nine overs of their bowling effort. You would have to say there is nothing in the San Francisco attack to worry the plethora of big hitters in the Los Angeles Knight Riders side but off the back of that first game you fancy the Unicorns to swing hard at everything again. That can lead us to seeing over 19.5 sixes covered.
Tips
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