KKR vs SRH Prediction: Two KKR Prop Bets to Consider

It’s the IPL Final on Sunday May 26 (15:00, Sky Sports Cricket) between Kolkata Knight Riders and the Sunrisers Hyderabad as KKR look to win their third IPL crown.

James Pacheco thinks Venkatesh Iyer and Varun Chakravarthy could well be the men to make the difference for KKR with bat and ball respectively, at good prices as he takes us through his SRH vs KKR Predictions...

Kolkata Knight Riders

KKR topped the Group Stages and had little trouble beating the Sunrisers in the first Qualifier.

They’d also beaten them earlier on in the competition and it’s now four of the last five between these two that have gone the way of the Knight Riders.

In that Qualifier it was Mitchell Starc and his three wickets that did most of the damage in terms of restricting SRH to a score well below par while the Iyers- Venkatesh and Shreyas- were in a rush to get the game over and done with, which they did with a remarkable 38 balls to spare.

It showed they’re not solely reliant on Sunil Narine as some suspected and that others can step up when needed, as well. Rahmanullah Gurbaz was also good for his 23 off 14 in the absence of Phil Salt.

They look well-equipped in all areas and would be deserved IPL winners if they were to get over the line here.

Possible XI: Gurbaz, Narine, Venkatesh, Nitish/Arora (subs), Shreyas, Rinku, Russell, Ramandeep, Starc, Harshit, Varun

Sunrisers Hyderabad

It was an interesting first innings from SRH on Friday against Rajasthan. That just about everyone in the top 5 scored so quickly meant that when the wickets started to fall, they already had plenty of runs on the board and the lack of acceleration at the death didn’t really cost them. Heinrich Klassen, who had been quiet for a few matches, top scored with 50 off 34.

With the ball, part-timers Shahbaz Ahmed and Abishek Sharma shared five wickets between them, and it will be a big bonus if those two can repeat the trick with their spin, so SRH have plenty of options if a couple of the frontline bowlers have a bad day.

Pat Cummins carries on doing a great job as skipper and he’ll need to be at his best here in terms of rotating the bowlers against KKR’s power hitters.

Possible XI: Head/Shahbaz (subs), Abhishek, Tripathi, Markram, Klaasen, Reddy, Samad, Cummins, Kumar, Unadkat, Natarajan

Pitch and conditions

There’s no rain forecast, so we’re unlikely to have a repeat of last year’s final that needed three days to be completed.

Rajasthan’s struggles in the second innings here on Friday suggest 170 or so batting first has you bang in the game, but they may use a different strip here if they feel it would be unworthy of an IPL final to be low-scoring.

Either way, batting first might be the way to go after what happened on Friday.

KKR vs SRH Odds

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

KKR hold most of the trump cards here: they topped the group, beat SRH twice already, have won all of the last three between them and four of the last five, and have won the IPL more times than SRH; so these are all reasons contributing to them being 4/5 favourites.

Recent IPL finals have also tended to go the way of the favourites, so all in all, it’s not a bad bet at all.

KKR Top Batsman

There’s plenty of quality in this KKR batting line-up but who’s the value?

Narine (4/1) and Shreyas Iyer (16/5) have been two of the more consistent players for them with the bat, but the former has slightly gone off the boil while the latter is short enough, despite winning last time by pipping the other Iyer - Venkatesh - at the post by going 6, 4, 6 and 6 and ending up unbeaten on 58.

And it’s the other Iyer, Venkatesh, that I’m interested in. Crucially, he’s almost certainly going to bat at three, while most of the other KKR batters can change positions depending on the state of the game. So he’s almost guaranteed to get a decent amount of time at the crease.

His last four innings have yielded scores of 70, 1, 42 and 51 so he’s certainly in good form and ticks more boxes than just about anyone else, including the key one of being a considerably bigger price than others at 9/2.

KKR Top Bowler

Starc is all the rage as the 16/5 favourite after that 3/34 in the Qualifier that saw him pick up the man-of-the-match award.

But at a slightly bigger price, you can back the extremely consistent Varun Chakravarthy, their top wicket-taker for the season with 20 victims. His figures in the last five matches read: 3/16, 2/22, 3/30, 2/17 and 2/26 so he’s clearly in excellent form and taking plenty of wickets.

He’ll have every chance anyway but if this is played on a worn surface, even more so, and 100/30 is a good enough price.

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...