KKR vs SRH Prediction: Andre Russell provides Betting Value for Top KKR Bowler

With the IPL heading into the finals stage, we've asked our Cricket correspondent Jamie Pacheco to take a look at the matches. Tuesday’s Indian Premier League Qualifier 1 (15:00, Sky Sports Cricket) match will be played Ahmedabad and the winning side on the day will go straight to the final.

There are good reasons why the great Andre Russell could come good as KKR top bowler at 5/1 while Abishek Sharma can keep up his excellent form and top score for SRH at 16/5. You can read why in Jamie's KKR vs SRH Predictions column below...

Kolkata Knight Riders

The Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) were the stand-out side in the Group Stages, topping the table with 20 points after winning nine, losing just three and having two matches rained off, the second of which was on Sunday against Rajasthan. Even a loss against the Royals at the weekend would have been unlikely to dethrone them from top spot.

It helped that in Sunil Narine they have a man who’s the red-hot favourite to be Player of the Tournament. If his 15 wickets from 13 matches at an economy rate of 6.63 are no more than we’d come to expect of him with the ball, his 461 runs to make him the side’s top scorer including a century and three fifties all at a strike rate of almost 183, were a huge bonus. To have a player who can shine like that in both disciplines is, as a well-known credit card company would say: priceless.

All of Harshit Rana, Varun Chakravarthy and Andre Russell also reached 15 wickets (or more), Russell doing so at a brilliant strike rate of 10.1. It looks to be their stronger suit with the batting a bit too reliant on Narine and Phil Salt (239 runs), who has left to report for international duty. It’s a worry because if Narine doesn’t fire, someone else will have to and only Venkatesh Iyer from those available, has two fifties.

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

Sunrisers Hyderabad

The Sunrisers (SRH) finished well with two wins and a no-result from their last three matches to gatecrash the Top 2 after looking at one stage like they might not qualify for the Playoffs at all.

Openers Travis Head (533 runs) and Abishek Sharma (467) are both striking at over 200, the team as a whole being the poster boys for the all-out aggression batting style that has taken the IPL by storm this year. That they haven’t needed much from superstar Heinrich Klassen shows how much of the heavy-lifting those two openers have done. Still, his 42 off 26 to allow them to chase Punjab’s 215 with ease was a reminder of what he can do.

With the ball, skipper Pat Cummins who can seemingly do no wrong as skipper of any side has 15 wickets, and T Natarajan 17. It’s a concern though that no-one is going at less than nine an over in terms of economy rate.

They continue to make do with just three overseas players (Head, Cummins and Klassen) but big-hitting batsman Glenn Phillipps, who can provide a spin option in addition to brilliant fielding, is available if they choose to throw him in at the deep end despite not featuring yet.

Possible XI: Head, Abhishek, Tripathi/Unadkat (subs), Reddy, Klaasen, Samad, Shahbaz, Cummins, Sanvir, Kumar, Viyaskanth.

Pitch and conditions

Bar a strangely low-scoring game between Gujarat and Delhi, Ahmedabad has been a good batting wicket with 200 and 231 the first innings totals in the last two games here: Bangalore chasing the former, and Gujarat defending the latter against Chennai.

With possible rain delays and maybe a shortened game, second innings dew and wanting to know what the target is, both sides will probably look to chase, though SRH may be better suited to batting first, posting a monster 230+ and relying on scoreboard pressure.

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.

The match winner market can’t split these two: it’s pretty much evens the pair. And that’s a tad surprising given KKR were better in the Group Stages and won the only match between them, their first of the tournament, back in late March.

The reason for that may be the question marks about KKR’s batting highlighted already. A beautiful batting wicket may play into SRH’s hands rather than KKR’s.

It’s a market best left alone.

KKR Top Wicket-Taker

We all know about Andre Russell the explosive lower-middle order batsman but what about Russell, the bowler? He’s on 15 wickets from just 25 overs while Chakravarthy has 18 but needed 44 overs to get them, Rana needed 34 overs for his 16 wickets and Narine bowled 47 to get his 15 scalps.

Had Russell (let’s remember that insane strike rate of 10) bowled anything close to his full quota of overs and he’d probably be the top wicket-taker in the whole tournament.

And that’s the risk you’re taking with Russell. He may bowl his four overs, he may just bowl 2-3. But odds of 5/1 are very tempting, nonetheless. It may well be that KKR decide his experience is what’s needed in a match like this and give him at least three overs. In each of his last three matches he’s taken two wickets and a repeat of that will certainly have him in the mix.

Remember that if he’s tied on wickets with one or more players, there will be a dead-heat, which is where his odds of 5/1 are so important.

SRH Top Batsman

This could well be another shoot-out between Abishek Sharma (100/30) and Travis Head (9/4). There’s not a huge amount to choose between them in terms of runs and neither player is going to die wondering as those strike rates of 200+ show.

If the stats can’t really split them, the odds can, so Sharma is the obvious call at the far bigger price; presumably just because Head is the bigger name.

Klassen is the 16/5 second-favourite in the market but batting at 4 or even 5, there’s always the danger one of those two is already on 60 or 70 by the time he comes to the crease, so he may not give us a decent run for our money at what is quite a short 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...