IPL - Kolkata v Rajasthan (Jaipur)

 
For all of you who were missing Mr Cricket - and even those of you who weren't - I am back after a long journey to the Caribbean and a few days settling in. I am here to watch the action between Australia and the West Indies in the battle for the Frank Worrell Trophy and we will get to that in due course. But let's not put the cart before the horse - the Indian Premier League is still in full swing and we will be looking to make some money there. Mr Cricket has to declare one thing though, he hasn't seen an IPL game in a week or so since leaving Australia. It might be wise to go easy on our suggested bets for a few days although we are confident we can continue our IPL winning streak.

Attention turns to the clash between Kolkata and Jaipur and this should be an absolute cracker. There are plenty of sub-plots here because captains Shane Warne (Jaipur) and Sourav Ganguly (Kolkata) were at each other’s throats the last time these two teams tangled. Warne also has done little to disguise his contempt for Kolkata coach John Buchanan, the former Australian coach. The eyes of the world will be on Warne on this match and is is again on the backpages of newspapers after declaring he would answer an SOS if Australia wanted him for the 2009 Ashes.

We note with interest that this clash is in Kolkata and there have been no decent team scores there. The pitch was terribly dodgy in the early stages of this competition, and even though it has been claimed it has improved, the scores don't suggest it is anything like a belter. So, as with all IPL games in Kolkata so far, we won't be touching match betting.

In what is likely to be a low-scoring contest, we are looking for some value in high bat markets. This is on the assumption that there could be plenty of wickets here again while runs will be a struggle. That will bring the players in the middle and lower order into the equation as value bets in run markets.

In six innings for Jaipur, Indian allrounder Ravindra Jadeja has scored 105 runs at an average of 21. Even if he bats to his average it could almost be enough if the pitch is tricky. He is worth a 0.25 unit value bet at $13 with Paddypower to be Jaipur's top scorer. And for the same reasons as we have mentioned previously (the pitch factor etc), we love the odds of Warne himself at $29 to be Jaipur's topscorer with bet365. It's also worth 0.25 unit. For either of these bets to get up we will need early wickets - and a bit of luck - but that's entirely possible in Kolkata. 

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