Gujarat Lions
$1.81 at Sportsbet
League finish: 1st
IPL form: W L W W L
Sunrisers Hyderabad
$2 at www.Bet365.com
League finish: 3rd
IPL form: L W L L W
It’s take two for Gujarat Lions as they look to reinvigorate their quest for the 2016 Indian Premier League title.
After finishing top of the table in their debut campaign, Suresh Raina’s men were well tamed by Royal Challengers Bangalore on Tuesday in the first qualifier.
A Dwayne Smith half-century at number five saw the Lions post 158, and it was looking rosy when they dismissed five of the RCB top six for a combined 10 runs.
That included a rare duck for Virat Kohli – he of four 100s, six 50s and over 900 runs in this tournament alone.
But Gujarat had no answer for an on-song AB de Villiers, who smashed 79 off 47 balls and, thanks to some lower-order support from Stuart Binny and Iqbal Abdulla, saw Bangalore home with nearly two overs spare.
The worry for Gujarat is who will open the batting with Brendon McCullum, as Aaron Finch has scored four runs in two innings since replacing the similarly unreliable Smith.
They will need a stronger showing at the top of the order if they wish to book a rematch with RCB in the final, which is scheduled for Sunday, May 29 at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
It was Sunrisers Hyderabad who looked destined for the decider two weeks ago, but back-to-back defeats in their last two league fixtures saw them slip out of the top two playoff spots.
That meant they had to negotiate an elimination final, which they did on Wednesday with a 22-run victory over Kolkata Knight Riders.
It was a typically solid batting display from Sunrisers, with four of the top five contributing 20 runs or more on a tricky wicket at the Feroz Shah Kotla.
A total of 162 proved enough for David Warner and company as they kept KKR to 140 in 20 overs, with Bhuvneshwar Kumar (3/19) and Moises Henriques (2/17) putting on a textbook display of Twenty20 seam bowling.
Hyderabad have the advantage of playing a second consecutive match in Delhi, yet it’s the Lions who hold sway in the T20 betting markets at online bookmakers.
That trend is also reflected in the IPL outright odds at Bet365.com, where Gujarat are paying $4.33 to down both Sunrisers ($4.50) and RC Bangalore ($1.61) en route to a maiden title.
Dhawal Kulkarni T20 bets
He might not be the most fashionable bowler in the competition, but Kulkarni is damned effective.
With 18 wickets in 13 games at a 15.0 strike rate, the medium-pacer from Mumbai sits fourth on the IPL T20 bowling stats for 2016.
He also has a better economy rate (7.37) than the three guys above him on the table – B Kumar, Yuzvendra Chahal and Shane Watson.
Kulkarni was the match-winner with four wickets against Kolkata, and it would no surprise to see him back up with another strong performance on Friday.
Man of the match – $19 (Bet365)
Top Lions bowler – $5 (Sportsbet)
Top Lions batsman – $151 (Bet365)
David Warner IPL betting markets
While Henriques, Kumar and Yuvraj Singh were the stars on Wednesday, there’s no denying who Hyderabad’s talisman is.
Warner is a tour-de-force in Twenty20 IPL cricket and is only getting better, if his recent runscoring record is anything to go by.
The Australian lefty has now passed 400 runs in four consecutive seasons, this time reaching a career-best 686 with seven 50s in 15 games.
Only Kohli has scored more in Indian Premier League 2016, and a spot in the final would be just reward for a man whose captaincy has earned as many plaudits as his runmaking.
Man of the match – $6 (Bet365)
Top Sunrisers batsman – $2.88 (Sportsbet)
To outscore B McCullum – $1.80 (Bet365)
Last Gujarat Lions XI
- Aaron Finch
- Brendon McCullum
- Suresh Raina (captain)
- Dinesh Karthik
- Dwayne Smith
- Ravindra Jadeja
- Dwayne Bravo
- Eklavya Dwivedi
- Praveen Kumar
- Dhawal Kulkarni
- Shadab Jakati
Last Sunrisers Hyderabad XI
- David Warner (captain)
- Shikhar Dhawan
- Moises Henriques
- Yuvraj Singh
- Deepak Hooda
- Ben Cutting
- Naman Ojha
- Bhuvneshwar Kumar
- Bipul Sharma
- Barinder Sran
