Slow Super Kings to struggle against Kings XI

The fourth match of this weekend’s Dream11 Indian Premier League double header sees Kings XI Punjab take on the Chennai Super Kings. Kings XI will want to put the misery of their mauling at the hands of Mumbai behind them whilst CSK will be desperate to get back to winning ways after their narrow defeat to the Sunrisers Hyderabad on Friday night.

Good in parts

For the first 16 overs of their last match against the Mumbai Indians you could have argued that Kings XI were the better side, but they were met by the full force of Kieron Pollard and Hardik Pandya for the remaining four overs. With the bat, they were always beind the chase and never seemed favourites to hit the 192 needed to win the game. 44 from Nicholas Pooran, the only real positive to take in to this one from last time out.

Sheldon Cottrell seemed relieved to not be playing at Sharjah as he returned to somewhere near his best, claiming figures of 4-0-20-1. They will be hoping that Cottrell and Mohammed Shami, who is the current leading wicket taker in the IPL this year (as of Friday), can make some serious inroads into the Chennai top order.

Slow starting Super Kings

Chennai’s top order woes continued last time out against the Sunrisers. After dropping Murali Vijay and promoting the inform Faf du Plessis to the top of the order, CSK got off to a sluggish start and lost Shane Watson for just 1 from 6 balls. Du Plessis looked in great touch before being run out to leave CSK 36-3 and seemingly out of the contest. MS Dhoni, who has now played in more IPL matches than anyone else, promoted himself to number 5 to try and get his side out of a hole but it looked like he had dug them further in to a hole when they needed 86 from the final 30 balls. A half century from Ravi Jadeja alongside 47* from the captain and 15* from just 5 balls for Sam Curran, saw CSK fall agonisingly 7 runs short.

Whilst it might look like a narrow defeat in the scorebook, you have to question the mindset in the CSK camp. They have seemed happy to let the game drift to a state where they need 15+ runs per over. Whilst Dhoni might be known as the finisher, it seems an odd option to take, especially when you have the likes of Sam Curran and Dwayne Bravo sat in the dugout not being utilised.

Match Tip

It’s hard to argue with the thought that there will be plenty of wickets in this one with Mohammed Shami taking the field. CSK have also taken a healthy amount of wickets, spread out amongst the bowlers.

I am backing there to be more than 12.5 wickets in the match between Kings XI Punjab and the Chennai Super Kings at 1.80 with Unibet.

Bet Over 12.5 wickets in the match on Unibet