SRH vs RR Prediction: Bet on Rajasthan to hit the Most Sixes

Friday’s Indian Premier League Qualifier 2 (15:00, Sky Sports Cricket) match will be played at Chennai with the winners joining Kolkata in the final.

James Pacheco came up with a 9/2 winner on Rajar Patidar to be top RCB batsman on Wednesday and will be investing some of those profits on two more wagers in this one as he takes us through his SRH vs RR Predictions...

Rajasthan Royals

The Royals knocked out Bangalore on Wednesday in the Eliminator to stay alive in the competition.

Three wickets from Avesh Kahn (who was expensive) and two wickets from the evergreen Ravi Ashwin, who bowled 2-19 off his four overs and ended up being man-of-the-match, kept RCB to a total that was always going to give the men in blue a good chance of chasing it.

And so, they did, thanks to good contributions from Yashavi Jaiswal (45), Riyan Parag (36), Shimron Hetmyer (26) and Rovman Powell, whose 16 off 8 when things started to look a little precarious, got them over the line pretty easily in the end. Powell had earlier also taken four catches.

Another good all round team effort may be just what they need here again, and it was notable that with the bat that players went for their shots and were always aware of the run rate, rather than thinking about protecting their wicket.

It would be no surprise if they fielded the same XI again.

Possible XI: Jaiswal, Kohler-Cadmore, Samson, Parag, Jurel, Dubey/Powell (subs), Ashwin, Boult, Avesh, Sandeep, Chahal

Sunrisers Hyderabad

The bad news is that they saved one of their worst batting performances of the season for their most important match and were well beaten by a good KKR performance.

It showed that their batting is a little too over-reliant on opening pair of Travis Head and Abishek Sharma and that when they don’t fire, the middle-order may be vulnerable. Heinrich Klassen threatened to get them to a good total, but it wasn’t to be this time.

The good news is that they get a second bite of the cherry, a reward for that Top 2 finish.

One option is to (finally) bring in Glenn Phillips which would give them another batsman, who can bowl some spin, not to mention provide them with a gun fielder.

What might work in their favour here is the absence of a genuine quick bowler in the Royals ranks after Mitchell Starc of KKR blew their top order away with tree early wickets.

Possible XI: Head/Natarajan, Abhishek, Tripathi, Reddy, Klaasen, Ahmed, Samad, Sanvir, Cummins, Kumar, Viyaskanth/Phillips.

Pitch and conditions

We’re at Chennai for this one.

Over the years it’s been a ground primed for chasing where 170 is usually around par, though scores have been higher here this season, following the general IPL trend of bigger first-team totals and successful chases of big scores.

It’s also a ground where spin has played its part over the years so that could be a big factor, too.

The smart money is on the skipper winning the toss wanting to chase.

SRH vs RR Odds

*Please click on the link above to be taken to the main SRH vs RR market page on betfred.com (or app) for all the live betting prices on this match.

With momentum from their good win on Wednesday and the better spinners in Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal on a Chennai track that should turn, you could make a case for the Royals here at 20/21 in what is essentially an even-money game.

But if you don’t fancy their pre-match price, one strategy would be to hold out for say 2.3 in live betting, hope they bat second and get with them if their odds reach that mark.

Either way, better bets lie elsewhere.

Rajasthan Royals Top Batsman

Sanju Samson has been rewarded for is consistency in the IPL over the years, including this year, by booking his place on the plane to the World Cup. When you think that the likes of KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer missed out in the process, you can see the extent to which he’s impressed the selectors.

He should probably have won this market on Wednesday and was just moving through the gears on 17 off 13 when he uncharacteristically came down the pitch, missed one that turned and was stumped; it’s not often you see him getting out like that.

But at the price of 3/1, he deserves a chance to make up for that. This isn’t a cliched case of ‘the skipper leading by example’; rather it’s case of backing a player vastly experienced in these situations, who is in good form, is the team’s second-highest runscorer (521 runs) after Riyan Parag, and bats at three… to come good at a very decent price. And that will do us just fine.

You always get the feeling that Hetmyer (7/1) might save the day sometime with his huge lower order hits but batting at six, you never know how much time at the crease he’s going to get.

Most match sixes

There’s no doubting that SRH have hit plenty more sixes this IPL than the Royals have. It’s been a key part of their game-plan this whole campaign to take risks by going for the big hits rather than accumulate runs.

Just Head, Abishek and Klassen have hit over 100 between them.

But Royals have their own power-hitters with Samson, Hetmyer, Powell and Parag all capable, though they are missing the six-hitting ability of the absent Jos Buttler.

I can see why SRH are big favourites at 1/2 to hit the most match sixes but I also think season-long stats aren’t the be-all-and-end-all and getting Head/Abishek out early, as happened against KKR, will seriously dent their chances of striking too many maximums.

If the game doesn’t quite go to form, the 19/10 the Royals hit the most sixes will have every chance.

Jamie Pacheco predominantly covers Cricket for us at Betfred Insights. You can check out his Cricket Betting Tips, along with those from the rest of the team, at our Cricket hub page...