Kolkata Knight Riders will take on the Rajasthan Royals in the tenth match of the tournament in Cape Town on Thursday after the Chennai-Delhi encounter.
The Knight Riders had an indifferent start to the tournament when they lost to the Deccan Chargers in their first encounter, but this was followed by an impressive win over the Kings XI Punjab in a rain-curtailed encounter. Delhi, on the other hand, has played only one match so far, ending up victors in it.
On paper, the Kolkata (8/11 Sky Bet) team looks as strong as one could have, what with the likes of Brendon McCullum (7/2 at Ladbrokes for being highest scorer of KKR), Sourav Ganguly (9/2 at Bet 365 for being highest scorer of KKR) and last game’s Player-of-the-Match, Chris Gayle (3/1 at Ladbrokes for being highest scorer of KKR) forming the top three of the line-up. With this line-up and a prelude like the one against Punjab to boot, my bucks will be on Kolkata to score more runs in the first six overs (4/6 Stan James), unless of course the Royals open their inning with Yusuf Pathan. The probability of that happening is as high as Rajasthan winning this year’s tournament again; at this point in time!
The bowling line-up looks equally strong with Ishant Sharma, Ashok Dinda, Murali Kartik and M. Henriques forming the bowling. And now with Ganguly looking like he can turn his arm over for an entire spell – of four overs – an Ajantha Mendis can replace Henriques to try and bamboozle the opponents with his bag of tricks. Mendis (4/1 Stan James) remains my favourite to bowl with the least of the economy rates of all bowlers; if he only features in the starting eleven!
Rajasthan (6/5 William Hill to win the match) are not the favourites to win the match. This is because they have been laid low by the absences of Sohail Tanvir, Shane Watson and Shaun Tait, and although the first match showed that their bowling has not exactly weakened, it will only be a matter of time before a stronger team goes after the weak link in the team; their bowling department.
Amongst those who will definitely play, Munaf Patel (9/2 at Stan James for most economic analysis) looks the best and his nagging line and length should trouble the opposition. Stan James offer 4/1 for Shane Warne to bowl at the cheapest rate, yet, my money will be on the Patel, given that my sense is that Warne is better at being an attacking, wicket-taking option than acting as a restrictive bowler thus also meaning that he may leak runs in the process.