IPL - Bangalore Royal Challengers v Kolkata Knight Riders

[fairfranco]

The much anticipated Indian Premier League starts today with huge money bringing the big name players into play 20/20 cricket in India in a mix of Indian and world players.

The (likely) teams for todays games are as follows:

Bangalore:

1 Praveen Kumar, 2 Wasim Jaffer, 3 Jacques Kallis, 4 Rahul Dravid (capt), 5 Virat Kohli, 6 Cameron White, 7 B Akhil, 8 Mark Boucher (wk), 9 Zaheer Khan, 10 Ashley Noffke, 11 R Vinay Kumar

Note that they also have Chanderpaul, Ul-Haq, Steyn and Ross Taylor who aren't picked/available for the game.

Only 4 overseas players are allowed to play in each game.

Kolkata:

1 Chris Gayle, 2 Sourav Ganguly (capt), 3 Ricky Ponting, 4 Brendon McCullum (wk), 5 David Hussey, 6 Debabrata Das, 7 Laxmi Ratan Shukla, 8 Ajit Agarkar, 9 Murali Kartik, 10 Ishant Sharma, 11 Ashok Dinda

Butt and Gull are also in the Kolkata squad.

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Personally I'd say the Kolkata squad is much stronger and the odds favour this too with Kolkata favourites at 1.7 (5/7) to win.

They have an impressive batting line up with the likes of Ponting McCullum and Hussey as well as captain Ganguly.

Gayle is an outstanding 20's player with the record of 117 runs in 57 balls with a record 10 6's when he played against South Africa in the world cup. However he was injured last week in the on dayer and is a doubt having yet to surface in India at the moment!

I want to Lay the favourite in this game but i'm just not sure how strong the Bangalore team is for this game, they have some decent players but I think if Kolkata bat first they could bat a score that will only see their odds fall.

There are of course a lot of unknown's with many relative unknown Indian players in each side. 19year old Kohli for Bangalore player for India U19's and averages 35.8 and a strike rate of 131 in the 5 T20's he's played.

Anyone care to take a guess at how old this picture of Rohan Banerjee is? http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ipl/content/player/27014.html

Look forward to this despite being stuck at work when it's on!

Good luck to you all and looking forward to your comments.

[princecap]

12 yo

It says the pic was taken in 2000.

I will paper trade this today, and see how things go!
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Numbers and me, Its a love-hate relationship. I love them, they hate me!

[fairfranco]

I'm hoping Bangalore bat first as I feel Kalkota could score big. Would create better trading hopefully.

I may be wrong and kalkota could do horrendous!

[princecap]

True..Kolkatta seem to have a very decent batting line up. Banglore have an equally good bowling line up. I would say this is fairly even contested game...to an extent.

Ayways, franco, if you know: would it be wise choice to back the outsider for most part of the game? I know Titan says Lay 1.40 at all times, but I am created a spreadsheet, and am ready to start paper trading.

Mind you though, I won't be able to watch the game live (prob online, few seconds later). Think it might effect trading a bit. But oh well.
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Numbers and me, Its a love-hate relationship. I love them, they hate me!

[Inatimate1]

I like Kolcatta here, Ponting is definately one who can put in a good few runs, wouldn't want to back against them in reality, they are quite short, but with the ability they have I think they could win this match. The sixes market for 8 and over is a bit short, but I definately wouldn't be surprised if this is a high scoring match.
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Top Football Tipster June 2006
7th Overall In The WC 2006 Competition
3rd in Cheltenham Festival Competition 2008

[princecap]

Kolkatta has been put into bat. Should be a run fest for them, although I must admit that the ball would swing. Z Khan and perhaps Noffke can do some damage in the beginning here, esp if Ganguly has a bad start.
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Numbers and me, Its a love-hate relationship. I love them, they hate me!

[fairfranco]

frustratingly Dravid has won the toss and decided to field. not what i would have wanted from a trading point of view but we'll see.

Kolkata starting at 1.64

[Betfairalfie]

[princecap]

Chers alfie..although with the state of the game, don't think the other will get matched. Might be a better option to back the same team if and when they go up.
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Numbers and me, Its a love-hate relationship. I love them, they hate me!

[fairfranco]

I initially backed bangalore playing pot luck with the toss, annoying dravid decides to field but with the slow start i still managed to trade out, backing at 2.5 laying at 2.3.

then got big on Kalkata at 1.7 and 1.8 laying off at 1.35.

awesome start from Kalkata until that first wicket, 60 off of the first 5 after only 3 (all extras!) in the first over.

Backed 180 runs which i've traded out now, got 2.3 and 3.0 on that! layed 1.6

the 1.3 Lay on Kalkata well worth the switch, I think they'll see 1.6 again before the end, don't know if they'll hit evens though.

[princecap]

My paper trade is sort of bad atm.

+24 on Bangalore and -10 on Kolkatta.

Need Kolkatta to go to about 1.4 to even out. Anymore would obviously help.
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Numbers and me, Its a love-hate relationship. I love them, they hate me!

[Inatimate1]

Kolkata alone have just managed to break the 9 sixes total for the game which was where the bar was set , I thought it had a good chance of comming in, but i didn't expect it before the first innings had finished
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Top Football Tipster June 2006
7th Overall In The WC 2006 Competition
3rd in Cheltenham Festival Competition 2008