I’m about to offer you the best tips for IPL betting ahead of Monday’s match at the Wankhede Stadium. There’s the latest KKR v RR betting tips as well as the all-important online cricket betting opportunities ahead of the game.
The match starts on Monday, May 2 at 7.30 pm IST and pits one of the most impressive sides in the tournament (the Royals) against one in KKR who are just a couple of losses from missing out on a Playoff place.
They’ve been a much better side this season, with more in-form players and beat KKR the first time round this campaign. They’re favourites but they’re justified favorites and that’s who we’re going with.
I’ll also have my usual toss winner pick and the KKR v RR betting odds for my Hot Bet: a third tip at bigger odds than usual.
I’m going for the wily and in-form Ravi Ashwin to be RR top bowler after a string of fine performances when he’s helped his side win by taking crucial wickets.
Let’s see if he can take a few more in this match.
It looks a little short at first glance but the truth is they’ve been a far better side than KKR this tournament.
They’ve got the Orange and Purple cap holders in Buttler and Chahal while Ashwin, Boult and Padikkal are among those to be having strong tournaments, as well.
KKR, as we say below, have plenty of players out of form, are unsure about their batting line-up and are struggling to get on any sort of winning run.
And when they played earlier in the tournament, the Royals beat them after scoring 217/5 though to be fair to KKR, they actually came quite close to chasing it.
So RR tick plenty more boxes than Kolkata and though it’s not the best value price we’ll see all season, it’s just about good enough.
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Plus of course, all the latest KKR v RR betting markets and odds.
Ashwin was having a good tournament in terms of keeping the runs down without actually taking too many wickets up to about a week ago.
But he’s started getting rewarded for his efforts of late by claiming more wickets.
He took two against the Capitals, three against Gujarat and then one more against Mumbai at the weekend.
So he’s clearly in form, taking more wickets and has started bowling his full quota of overs these last few matches. All those are important factors discussed in our top bowler betting guide.
We also discuss below how Yuzvendra Chahal has gone off the boil a bit in terms of taking wickets, with batsmen playing him with more respect, meaning he’s less likely to get them out. So Chahal may not have things all his own way for a change.
Ashwin has a couple of other good bowlers to beat with Kuldeep Sen also impressing these last couple of matches. But there’s plenty to like about the veteran and odds of 4.33 will do us just fine.
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There was plenty to like about Kolkata at the start of the campaign with their big-hitters in the middle order, smart captain in Shreyas Iyer and plenty of bowling options, from the wily mystery spin of Sunil Narine, to the pace of Umesh Yadav.
But things haven’t worked out for them and they have just three wins in nine.
So with an extra game played compared to some other sides and plenty of ground to make up, KKR aren’t looking like title contenders at all, and even a Playoff place looks very unlikely.
Last time out they posted just 146 against Delhi, which was chased with an over to spare.
One of the big problems they’ve had is at the top of the order.
They’ve tried all of Venkatesh Iyer, Aaron Finch, Sunil Narine and Sam Billings but none of them have shown any consistency and they’re no close to knowing who to play as openers.
But they’ve had other problems. Much was expected of Pat Cummins but that freakish fifty with the bat aside in his first match, he was really poor. And far too expensive with the ball.
Andre Russell, their most important player of all, has taken wickets but has also been expensive, while his cameos with the bat have been too short-lived.
Team News
With results being poor of late, they may be tempted to make some changes.
But the only overseas player they haven’t played so far is Mohammad Nabi and he may not be quite what they need.
They have spin options anyway and their middle-order is actually very strong ‘on paper’. It’s just that usually reliable players like Russell and Narine just aren’t performing.
They should give Narine another go as an opener, though.
He had a couple of failures, including a first-ball run-out, but with few other options right now, they may as well let him open and hit a few early boundaries.
They don’t have anything to lose because he rarely makes big contributions in the middle or death overs.
Player to Watch: Shreyas Iyer
Iyer has been an interesting case this season.
They paid big money in the auction to play him at number three and have him captain the side but he has to take some responsibility for their lack of wins.
He must have played a part in the constant tinkering with the batting line-up and hasn’t always got his bowling changes and fielding positions right.
With the bat he’s been extremely consistent though, averaging 36.
But at times he’s needed to kick on and get bigger scores and has got out at just the wrong time.
Even the other day, he was going well on 42 but got out just when they needed him to accelerate.
With so many batsmen out of form, maybe he just needs to bat for longer and take slightly less risks.
It’s 8.0 with Betway that he’s man-of-the-match and 3.0 that he scores a fifty.
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Kolkata’s Likely XI
Finch, Narine, V Iyer, S Iyer, Rana, Indrajith, Russell, Singh, Yadav, Southee, Rana.
CTA
Rajasthan Royals’ Recent Form
Rajasthan lost a game at last after being on a good winning run and it was against the Mumbai Indians, who hadn’t won a single match up to that point.
It was a tricky wicket at the DY Patil Stadium and they got to 158, which was a competitive total.
It was once again left to Jos Buttler to do most of the hard work, playing a run-a-ball innings for most of the time and then just starting to accelerate.
But he got out for 67 and despite another good knock from Ravi Ashwin (21 off nine) they probably fell around 10 runs short of what they should have got.
One of the men responsible for that was Shimron Hetmyer. He just couldn’t score boundaries when they desperately needed them and he refused a few singles, as well.
They actually bowled ok and at one stage Mumbai looked like they might struggle but some late boundaries meant they got there in the end.
One slight area of concern is that Yuzvendra Chahal’s wickets have dried up.
After starting really well, he’s taken just two wickets in his last three games but is still the Purple Cap holder.
Team News
Daryl Mitchell has so far had two outings and really hasn’t made the most of them.
He didn’t get many runs in either of them and the one over he bowled against Mumbai went for 20 runs, which drastically changed the complex of the match.
Mumbai were struggling at that point but all those runs and momentum gave them a big helping hand.
So we may not see Mitchell given another go.
They have the option of playing another batsman in Rassie van der Dussen or can play an extra bowler in Obed McCoy.
Player to Watch: Jos Buttler
Jos Buttler is on course to break just about every IPL batting record going.
He’s on 566 runs so far and that includes three centuries and three fifties.
The record for most runs in an IPL season is 973 by Virat Kohli, which included four centuries and seven fifties. Those four centuries are a record, too.
Given Butter has a minimum of six more matches to play and you can see how he could break both those records.
At the moment it looks very effortless for him but the Royals will have to find a solution when he isn’t scoring all those runs by himself.
Unsurprisingly, he’s the 2.62 favourite for Royals top batsman and the 6.0 favourite for man of the match. Odds with Betway.
Royals’ Likely XI
Buttler, Padikkal, Ashwin, Samson, van der Dussen, Hetmyer, Parag, Boult, Krishna, Chahal, Sen.
Venue & conditions
At the Wankhede, the first innings score has been pretty close to the 190 mark.
Lucknow scored 195 there on Sunday against Delhi, exactly the same score that SRH managed against Gujarat last week. Punjab managed 187 there against CSK last week.
Lucknow and Punjab both defended those totals, SRH didn’t.
KKR won’t have good memories of playing here after posting just 146 here, chased by Delhi.
So if you get to 190 or so you have every chance of defending it but skippers winning the toss carry on wanting to chase because of dew.
Kolkata Knight Riders v Rajasthan Royals Head-To-Head
KKR are just 13-12 up in what is one of the closer head to head records in the IPL.
It’s been all KKR over the past few seasons. They’ve won seven out of the last nine including winning all three fixtures they played during the 2018 season.
KKR vs RR Toss Prediction
KKR are marginally ahead on toss wins with 14. KKR won it when they played earlier this season and we think Kolkata can win it this time, too.
