IPL Betting Day Five

A frustrating rain-lashed day on which we didn’t learn much, but still managed to finish ahead. Kolkata won thanks partially to Mr Duckworth and Mr Lewis, but mainly due to some stupendous hitting from Chris Gayle and a few swings of Brendon McCullum’s blade. Once again, Kings XI did reasonably well with the bat, the experiment of promoting Irfan Pathan a definite success and though they struggled when Ganguly and Henriques took the pace off the ball, 158 wasn’t a bad score.

Unfortunately, as we already know, they have no bowlers. Even Darren Gough has noticed this and though the likes of Pathan, ‘chubby’ Yusuf Abdulla and the bustling Vikramjeet Malik did their best, their best wasn’t good enough against Gayle and McCullum, even with conditions in their favour. Chawla was their only bowling bright spot, continuing the fine record of spinners in this tournament.

On the subject of conditions, we now know enough, I think, to sum up the three pitches used thus far. Durban looked to have plenty of bounce, variable at times and offered some help for the seamers but was not particularly quick. Cape Town is like Durban without the bounce. Port Elizabeth is the quickest of the three, the ball coming on quite nicely and also offering something for the spinners.

It’s back to Cape Town tomorrow and a day night affair which means you could do worse than just lump on the team batting first. But that kind of thing makes for a short discussion. Instead, I would suggest backing Deccan Chargers against KP’s Royal Challengers. Bangalore’s bowlers will be more effective back in these conditions, but they need to sort their batting line-up out.

But Deccan looked very impressive, organised and alert in the field and I would give them the edge in the batting, with Gibbs, Gilchrist and Laxman all getting in the runs against Kolkata and their bowling looks more dangerous than Bangalore, spearheaded by Fidel Edwards and RP ‘Swing’ Singh. (Sorry).

For top bat, it has to be Gibbs, Gibbs and more Gibbs. The man has put his personal problems behind him and is in sublime touch, loving playing in front of these crowds. You won’t get huge odds, but I’d take the 3-1 on offer in various places.


Wagers

Deccan to beat Bangalore @ 10-11 (Various)
Herschelle Gibbs to top score for Deccan @ 3-1 (Various)


Running Total – 3.96 pts