I’m about to offer you the best tips for IPL betting ahead of Wednesday’s match at Eden Gardens in Kolkata. There’s the latest LSG vs RCB betting tips as well as the all-important online cricket betting opportunities ahead of the game, known as the Eliminator.
The match starts on Wednesday May 25 at 7.30 pm IST between two sides who are three wins away from an IPL title. They’ll need to win this one, the Qualifier 2 and the final to go all the way. Difficult, not impossible.
Read on to find out who we think will win this one.
For my cricket betting tips on this game, the Eliminator, I’m going with LSG to win it.
LSG and RCB finished third and fourth respectively in the table but Lucknow were considerably more consistent, have better balance and RCB have a poor record in Eliminator Games, having lost it in the past two seasons. So LSG it is.
I’ll also have my usual toss winner pick and the LSG vs RCB betting odds for my Hot Bet: a third tip at bigger odds than usual.
I’m going with an LSG bowler to be their top wicket-taker. It’s a player who wasn’t in the side to begin with but has been impressive ever since and is getting better and better, and took three wickets in their last game. Can you guess who it is?
The bookies are finding it somewhat hard to split the two, making LSG just slight favourites.
But we think they should be hotter favourites than they are.
In their advantage is: a higher finish in the Group Stages, a better opening partnership with the bat thanks to de Kock and Rahul and more options with the ball.
That’s not to say they’re a better bowling unit than RCB, just that there are more options available to the skipper.
And the stats suggest RCB are fortunate to have got this far at all.
They rank just ninth (out of 10) for batting run rate and fifth for bowling run rate. Contrast that with LSG, who are fourth for batting run rate and second for bowling run rate.
The one thing you could argue is in RCB’s favour is that they beat Lucknow in the one match they played against each other.
But then again, RCB have lost in the Eliminator for the past two seasons so will have to change that negative trend here.
All of which makes LSG quite a confident choice.
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Plus of course, all the latest LSG v RCB betting markets and odds.
Mohsin Khan has been one of the tournament’s most underrated bowlers.
He’s taken 13 wickets so far but what number doesn’t tell you is that he needed just eight matches in which to take them. That’s because he wasn’t in the team at the start of the tournament but he’s certainly making up for lost time.
To put things into perspective, his strike rate of 13.3 (an average of 13.3 deliveries per wicket taken) is better than the following bowlers: Umran Malik, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami and Rashid Khan.
In fact, only the top three wicket-takers in the competition- Yuzvendra Chahal, Hasaranga and Kagiso Rabada- have a better strike rate than Mohsin and even then, it’s not by much.
Unsurprisingly, it’s the best strike rate of anyone at LSG.
And he’s in good form, fresh from a spell of 3-20 against KKR. As it happens he tied on three wickets with Stpinis on that occasion but he could well come good this time.
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It’s been an extremely intriguing first season for Lucknow.
They’ll be glad to be in the Playoffs in their debut season, a task made harder by the fact there are still only four Playoff places up for grabs, yet ten teams in it rather than eight, as was the case in previous seasons.
But they’ll be disappointed at having missed out on a Top 2 finish.
A win against either Gujarat in their penultimate game or the Royals in their last game would have guaranteed the famous ‘two bites of the cherry’ at making the final. But it wasn’t to be.
And it’s a bit of a worry for them that they failed to win either match against the two best sides in the competition, on league standings, at least. They’ll have to play (and beat) both of them if they’re to win it.
They could also have finished Top 2 if CSK had beaten the Royals but after a fast start from Moeen Ali, CSK’s efforts petered out and the Royals got home in the end.
KL Rahul, Quinton de Kock and Deepak Hooda all had good seasons with the bat while Mohsin Khan was the pick of the bowlers, with Ravi Bishnoi and Krunal Pandya generally good, as well.
So far neither Jason Holder nor Marcus Stoinis have shown their class or justified their paychecks fully but they have at least one more chance here.
LSG won last time out in a high-scoring match against KKR.
Rahul (68) and de Kock (140) put on a record-breaking partnership but KKR almost chased it, Lucknow hanging on to win by just two runs.
Team News
Last time out they decided they wanted to play the extra overseas batsman so picked batter Evin Lewis and sacrificed bowler Dushmantha Chameera.
Ironically Lewis didn’t bat at all because in an extraordinary turn of events, openers Rahul and de Kock carried their bats meaning no-one else got a go.
But Lewis made a vital contribution in another way.
He took an outstanding catch in the final over of the match just as KKR closed in on the win. It will be interesting to see who plays here.
Player to Watch: KL Rahul
Season after season KL Rahul does it in the IPL.
Let’s recap: three seasons ago he finished second in the race for the Orange Cap, two seasons ago he won it and last season he finished third.
And this season he’s currently on 537 runs. He probably has too many runs to make up on Jos Buttler to win it but he’s unlikely to be caught by anyone bar his team-mate de Kock.
So he’s highly likely to finish second for IPL top batsman, at worst third.
No other player can come close to his consistency with the bat in the IPL and that’s why we say Rahul is the competition’s GOAT.
He’s already got two centuries and three fifties for the season and as we said already, hit a good unbeaten 68 in the last match.
But can become good when it really matters? On Betway he’s 2.4 to be LSG top batsman and is 6.0 favourite for man-of-the-match.
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Lucknow’s Likely XI
Rahul, de Kock, Lewis, Hooda, Stoinis, Krunal Pandya, Holder, Gowtham, Mohsin Khan, Avesh Khan, Bishnoi.
RCB Recent Form
It’s been something of a strange season for RCB. But then again, every season we see some odd things from this team.
Virat Kohli, the former skipper and one of their retained players, has had a really poor season as we’ve talked about on plenty of occasions here.
Two fifties in 14 matches isn’t disastrous but a strike rate of 117 isn’t good at all. Yet he saved his best performance for their must-win game against Gujarat with a composed 73.
Another of their retained players, Glenn Maxwell, was also disappointing. In his case his saving grace was that he actually bowled pretty well because he didn’t get many runs.
But Hasaranga has been really impressive, Dinesh Karthik very good in his role as finisher and Josh Hazlewood was consistent as well, so it wasn’t all bad.
They deserve credit for beating table-toppers the Titans in a must-win game but quite frankly, you never know what you’re going to get from them.
Team News
Kohli will keep his place in the side after that good knock against GT. He should have been dropped a few games ago but high on confidence and ‘in form’ to some extent, they have to play him here and he’ll open again.
So we should have the same side who beat Gujarat in action once again.
Player to Watch: Glenn Maxwell
Maxwell is finding it extremely hard to find consistency in his game from season to season.
Two years ago he was released by Punjab after an awful season, only to be picked up by RCB for big money.
He had a really good season and was retained on the back of it. But it’s been a struggle this time round, scoring just 268 runs in 11 games and hitting just a sole fifty.
At least he’s bowled well, taking six wickets in just 21 overs and going at just over seven an over and as per usual, his fielding has been exceptional.
But they would have expected more runs from him. He has a chance to make it for it here and is 4.33 with Betway to be their top batsman. He’s also a really big 7.5 to be their top bowler. You never know…
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