We are down to four teams in the IPL and the first qualifier for the final takes place in Dharamsala on Tuesday when Royal Challengers Bengaluru take on the Gujarat Titans
It’s play off time and the winner of this match will advance straight to Sunday’s final in Ahmedabad.
On Wednesday we have the eliminator between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Rajasthan Royals at Mullanpur and the winner of that game will take on the loser of this contest in the second qualifier on Friday
Let’s take in an update on the outright winner betting market
RCB 16/10
Gujarat Titans 16/10
Sunrisers 11/2
Royals 6/1
To win this match RCB are 0.77/1 favourites and the Titans can be backed at around 21/20
RCB
The regular season saw RCB, the Titans and the Sunrisers all finish on 18 points with a record of 9 wins and 5 defeats and RCB came out top of the standings with the best net run rate. The Titans were runners up and the Sunrisers third with Rajasthan Royals 2 points adrift in fourth.
RCB won 4 of their first 5 matches and were always prominent in the standings. They lost their final match before the play offs away to the Sunrisers y 55 runs, chasing 255/4 proved to be a bridge too far but they did enough to preserve the best NRR in the tournament.
Virat Kohli has scored a total of 557 runs in 14 knocks whilst Devdutt Padikkal (433 from 13) and Rajat Patidar (393 from 12) were the next best. With the ball Bhuvneshwar Kumar was streets ahead with 24 wickets, the joint highest in the tournament.
On the teams news front Jacob Bethell will reportedly miss these play offs through injury.
Gujarat Titans
The Titans lost their first 2 matches but had a cracking second half of the regular season which ended with an 89 run hiding of CSK .
They came up against the Royal Challengers in Bengaluru in Match 34 and they lost by 5 wickets. GT posted 205/3 in that game with Sudharsan scoring 100 but RCB chased it down in 18.4 overs with Kohli top scoring with 81. The second meeting came in Ahmedabad in Match 42 and the Titans (158/6) beat RCB (155 all out) by 4 wickets.
Sudharsan has 638 runs from 14 innings and Shubman Gill has 616 from 13 knocks with Jos Buttler third best with 469 from 14. Kagiso Rabada ha taken 24 wickets to top the tournaments bowling charts alongside RCB’s Kumar. Rashid Khan has taken 19 and Siraj 17.
The Verdict
There was nothing between the teams in the regular season but my gut feel is the Titans might just edge this and I will bet accordingly.
Dharamsala is a neutral venue but whilst the Titans didn’t play here during the regular season RCB did beat Punjab Kings by 23 runs on this ground in Match 61. Venkatesh Iyer top sored with 71 that day and I’ll take him to be RCB’s top batsmen.
Bets: Gujarat Titans to win at 21/20 with Lucky Fish
Top RCB run Scorer Venkatesh Iyer at 39/10 with Lucky Fish
Note, odds are subject to change
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