IPL Betting: Rajasthan Royals v Mumbai Indians

Rajasthan Royals' Shane Watson

Two of the better teams in this year's IPL meet in Jaipur. Can the Royals topple table-leading Mumbai? Richard O'Hagan considers the odds.

Rajasthan Royals v Mumbai Indians
Start Time: Wednesday April 17, 15:30 BST
TV: Live on ITV4 and itv.com 

Rajasthan Royals

It has been an inconsistent start for the Royals. They played well to beat defending champions Kolkata, but since then have struggled to beat winless Delhi and somehow managed to lose to Pune. Despite all of this they are sitting fourth in the points table and behind Mumbai only on net run rate. Their performances have very much been team efforts, though. Only captain Rahul Dravid has passed 50 so far, but four others have made at least one score over 30. With the ball, little-known West Indian Kevon Cooper has been outstanding and his eight wickets make him to joint leading bowler in the IPL so far. Siddarth Trivedi is just one good game behind him with five, whilst the mercurial Sreesanth also averages a wicket a game, meaning that veteran Aussie T20 specialist Shaun Tait can't even get a game.

Mumbai Indians

All of the talk before the tournament was of Tendulkar and Ponting, the potency of their opening partnership and how Mumbai were going to run away with the competition as a result. Of course, things have not panned out like that. Mumbai do lead the points table, but only on net run rate from three other sides. Ponting has hardly been able to buy a run. Their bowling lineup has been chopped and changed so much that only three players have bowled in every game. At least Tendulkar seems to be running into some form at last, and that, coupled with the all round skills of Kieron Pollard (94 runs and 4 wickets so far, as well as some electric outfielding) has proved a useful foil to Dinesh Karthik, who has scored 224 runs batting at number three. Karthik lies second in the run scoring table for this IPL, with the highest strike rate of any of the top 30 runscorers. It is fair to say, though, that he is the only Mumbai player over-performing at the moment, with the rest seeming to do barely enough to get them over the line.

Venue and conditions

The Sawai Mansingh stadium in Jaipur has hosted two games in this year's IPL and they have both been low scoring ones, with three scores in the 120s and one in the 140s. It is definitely a ground for the quicker bowlers, with spinners having very limited success. There should be some movement there, too, especially in the second innings.

Match odds

The toss will be crucial, not just because of that movement but also because Mumbai have won all three of the games in which they have batted first, but failed to chase down a target in the one game which they lost. Rajasthan are currently 2.3411/8 with Mumbai at 1.618/13 and this could be one to hold back your money until that coin has been spun.

Top Rajasthan batsman

The way that the runs have been shared about the Royals' batsmen makes picking any one no easy task, but Australian Brad Hodge has looked in good touch and is due a big score. Back him at odds of around 4.77/2.

Top Mumbai batsman

The temptation here will be to back Karthik, just because of his record so far. However, his heavy scoring doesn't mean that he is always the top scorer in the innings. Given the nature of this pitch, Mumbai will be looking for a late overs blitz from Pollard to get their score over than 140 mark and at around 5.04/1 he will be good value, too.

Recommended bet
 
Back Kieron Pollard at around 5.04/1 to top score for Mumbai