1. Background:
Punjab hosts Gujarat Titans at their home in the reverse fixture of what was a thrilling finish in Ahmedabad. Last time around Shashank Singh who was bought in by mistake made sure to drive home a message that he deserves to be amongst the big boys. Punjab would want to repeat the favors to Gujarat and get back on the winning ways. Punjab should have won the last two games as well. If not the false shot by Ashutosh Sharma Punjab would have won the fixture against Mumbai. They should have also defended the score against Rajasthan if they would have held on to their catches.
Gujarat on the other hand were outplayed by Delhi in their last fixture at home. Gujarat has gone in with a high risk approach of loading their bowling and hoping that their captain ,their overseas batsmen along with Sai and Tewatia can score enough. It’s a risky move and on the days it does not pay off you can see results like the previous match. Gujarat would like to forget that game and move on.
2. Ground & Pitch:
Mullanpur the new home ground for Punjab has provided equal opportunities to both batsmen and bowlers. The track has given some keenly fought matches. The last innings here have been 174, 182, 147 and 192 and above 180 the teams have defended the scores , although last game Punjab came very close in chasing 192.
Ground is a decent sized ground and expect it to be a good competition as well. It will be the 5th game this season so last couple of games for Punjab at home.
3. Players To Watch For Punjab Kings
Shashank Singh the player who was not supposed to be part of the team has stood tall amongst the foreign or indian internationals. So much so that in the next year’s auction he might be one of the players that are retained by Punjab. At 175 strike rate and 62 average Shashank has shown that he belongs here.
Ashutosh Sharma could have done the impossible in the match against Mumbai but it was not destined to be. At 205 strike rate and 52 average Ashutosh Sharma has proven that his knocks have not been flash in the pan. Expect him to do well.
Rabada has been bowling well and with 10 wickets this season his spell will be most critical tomorrow. He is still going at 8.3 economy rate but given such high scores in this season his economy is not too bad.
4. Players To Watch For Gujarat Titans
Shubman Gill has been hot and cold this season. Is it the captaincy that is taking a toll on him ? With 263 runs in the 7 matches he has played so far Shubman Gill’s season will at best be a mediocre season. He needs to up his game if Gujarat wants to be in the qualifiers.
Sai Sudarshan at 127 strike rate and 34 average has been consistent but not impactful. Gujarat would want more impactful innings from him.
Rashid Khan has so far taken just 7 wickets this season in the 7 matches that he has played. That is even lesser than his team mate Mohit Sharma. This is also one of the reasons why Gujarat has not been so potent this year and that is because of its spinners not performing so well. Mullanpur will be a good ground for Rashid and his spin so hopefully he turns it for Gujarat.
5. Betting Tips:
Run Line is at 170.5 at the time of writing this blog and I believe this is where it should have been. I will take the risk of going overs this line for the first innings.
Match Bet. Gujarat starts as favorite at 1.83 against Punjab at 2.18. I am not too sure i agree with that. Punjab is driven by two uncapped Indians and their bowling attack while Gujarat is driven by its bowling attack and Shubman Gill. So its a game of two poor batting teams and the one who will seize the initiative will win. I will avoid a pre match bet here. Would wait to see in the game how this goes, i am more inclined on Gujarat to win this fixture.