Mr Cricket - Delhi V Bangalore

	Downloads Bookmark this site Set as homepage Andrew W Scott

IPL - Delhi v Bangalore

THESE teams come into the clash both coming off losses and Bangalore suddenly find themselves on the bottom of the ladder with just one win from four games. However, Bangalore did put in an improved showing in their most recent game, narrowly going down to a rampaging Chennai outfit. However Bangalore's improvement was largely on the back of one man - quick Zaheer Khan who took 3-38 to restrict Chennai's master blasters. There were still large worries for Bangalore given they could not chase down a run-of-the-mill target of 178. There are obvious problems in the Bangalore batting lineup with not enough hard hitters suited to Twenty20. And what on earth is going on with Rahul Dravid? He is so far out of form - and out of his comfort zone in this format (34 runs in four matches!!) - that he was pushed down to No.7. Even there he couldn't succeed and he fell to a first-ball duck when his team desperately needed him to fire.

Delhi also has significant problems with their batting lineup. The team that won their two opening games, on the back of blazing openers Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir, just doesn't have enough batting depth outside of their openers. As we predicted in their last loss, their are just too many hurdles and too much inexperience when Delhi's openers don't fire.

Both teams are chock with quality fast bowlers - Bangalore have Zaheer and Dale Steyn while Delhi have Glenn McGrath and Mohammad Asif. The spinners (Delhi - Daniel Vettori) and (Banglore - Anil Kumble) are fairly evenly matched although there is a fitness query over Kumble after he missed the last match. We also think the batting - lacklustre on both sides - pretty much cancels itself out. So basically there is not a struck match between the sides and there should be little between them in betting.

For both these teams too much relies on too few players and there are plenty of players in both sides out of form or who haven't had much of a hit. Delhi deserve to be slight favourites because of the home ground - but only just. However a scan of betting markets shows that Bangalore are rank outsiders and we think this is way off the mark. Bangalore is a 1 unit bet with Lasseters who has posted them at $2.45. This is well overs in a game that we have pretty much assessed as a toss of the coin affair. Get on Bangalore here.

If Delhi openers Sehwag and Gambhir don't fire we think the underdogs will almost certainly get the chocolates. And Bangalore's improved showing in their most recent hit-out will give them fresh confidence here. The only problem could be if Kumble is ruled out then Vettori (Delhi) will be the only world-class spinner in this match. Nevertheless, Bangalore are way overs, we think they should be about the $2 mark here. They will give an emormous show of cheek here. Bangalore are a better team than their form suggests - especially if Mark Boucher and Ross Taylor can provide some batting fireworks.