Mr Cricket: IPL - Delhi v Chennai

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IPL - Delhi v Chennai

Well we will put our hand up and admit we've copped a bit of a punting hit over the last two nights. It just goes to show - as we have always said - that in 20-over cricket, anything can happen, and often will. Picking winners in smash and bash cricket isn't easy but we are still well ahead for the tournament and looking to re-ignite our winning IPL streak in the double-header tonight. One thing that we have learnt over the last week is that the departures of the high-profile Australian and other international players has made it even tougher to pick winners. It has condensed the gap between the good and mediocre IPL outfits.

Anyway, enough gibbering, let's turn our attention to the clash between Delhi and Chennai. Chennai were high-flyers at the start of the tournament but after losing Matthew Hayden and Michael Hussey they have crunched back to earth with three consecutive losses. Stephen Fleming (Hayden's replacement) just hasn't been able to cut the mustard at the top of the order and batting has been a real worry for Chennai. We also keep expecting Muttiah Muralidaran to fire for Chennai but he has so far not been a matchwinner.

Delhi (even though they lost their last match) are still well placed with four wins from six games. Delhi's batting - which we always thought looked thin outside of irrepresible openers Virender Sehwag (247 runs at 49) and Gautam Gambhir (225 runs at 45) is starting to look better with a few other batting helpers chipping in. Young Indian Shikhar Dhawan (147 runs at 49) and South African latecomer AB De Villiers (ave 47) are starting to show there is more to Delhi's batting than just their swashbuckling openers. Delhi's bowling options are terrific - especially with the new ball - with Glenn McGrath and Mohammad Asif. McGrath's economy rate of 6.16 is one of the best in the tournament. Chennai's bowlers have taken just seven wickets in their last three games and they really, really need Murali to fire here. Even though Delhi clearly deserve to be favourites here we are steering clear of match betting because we still think Delhi are susceptible to a late batting collapse and you can never, ever write off Murali.

However, the good news here is that there is a rolled gold bet. No matter what happens in the rest of the match, Delhi can get off to an absolute flyer at the start of the innings with the explosive Sehwag and Gamhir leading the charge. Even if one of the openers falls early, AB De Villiers is just as explosive with the bat so Delhi will score plenty early. Stephen Fleming and the rest of the Chennai top-order are horribly out of form and will have to contend with Glenn McGrath here! That won't be easy and even if they survive they won't be scoring at a frantic rate. So the bet here, and we really like it for 2 units, is Delhi to score more runs than Chennai in the first six overs, at $1.61 with either William Hill or Bill Hurley.

Kolkata v Bangalore

Both of these teams have largely been woeful in recent times. Both have lost four of their last five matches and strife-torn Bangalore are going so badly they have even sacked their CEO. Kolkata certainly don't have the same aura since Ricky Ponting and Brendon McCullum left. We will get to the point early here. This is a game not to bet in. Not at all. Don't touch. For starters, it's being played on an Eden Gardens pitch which could be shonky again and throw a massive curveball into the mix. The pitch gremlins in Kolkata have been prevelent in both IPL games played there and the highest score at the venue so far is just 138! There's been no guarantees the pitch will be fixed for this game ... so we are looking at a situation where two bad teams could play each other on a bad pitch. It's a recipe for punting disaster - before you even try to assess some of the likely matchups of the sides. We won't even attempt that because this game is in the lap of the gods - and the pitch.

By no means is this an official play, but roughies Bangalore (at around $2.25) are probably over the odds in a game that could go any which way. And given the Kolkata pitch has at times kept lower than a caterpillar, you would think the odds of the first dismissal for either side being bowled ($5) or lbw ($7) might be tasty. Apart from the pitch factor, we really don't like either of these sides. Bangalore, with Shiv Chanderpaul the the wall Rahul Dravid, are too slow and crusty with the bat while Kolkata aren't much better with Sourav Ganguly at the top of the order. Australians have been stars in this tournament and you would think one of the Aussies in the Kolkata side - Brad Hodge or David Hussey - could do something decent here. But there is no point in rattling on too much because we absolutely hate this game from a punting point of view. This is our most succinct preview of the tournament but the message is simple. Don't touch.