Cricket Indian Premier League Prediction

Lucknow Super Giants vs Chennai Super Kings - Match Preview

🏏 3 May 2023 - 14:00 GMT +0

The first of two matches in Wednesday’s IPL double-header is an ‘Avengers’ worthy contest with two Super teams set to go to battle. This match will be key in determining the playoffs of the 2023 IPL with the Lucknow Super Giants set to host the Chennai Super Kings at the Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow. The winner of this match will jump up the table and go to 12 points, getting above the logjam that currently has five teams on ten points after nine wins.

Lucknow is a team that flies under the radar with them not quite having the star power or history of CSK or RCB and certainly not having the magic that came from Gujarat when winning the tournament in their first season. Any team would underrate Luckow at their peril, though, with the side always fighting to the end, especially with the ball where they on average conceded the fewest number of runs (166) per match of any team. However, if Lucknow does want to go all the way this season, their batting will need to improve with them averaging 179 runs per innings, the sixth-best in the tournament. The team has been saved on more than one occasion by Kyle Mayers (297 runs) and skipper KL Rahul (274 runs), the latter of whom may not even play against Chennai after coming off the field against Bangalore with an injury.

Consistency has been the issue for Lucknow in 2023 with the side having only won two games in a row on one occasion. There has also been no consistency in batting, with scores coming as high as 257 against Punjab while being bowled out for scores as low as 108 against Bangalore and making just 128 from 20 overs against Gujarat. It was a top-order collapse that saw Lucknow lose their most recent match against Bangalore as the side slumped to 38/5 in a chase of just 126 before being bowled out 18 runs short. Lucknow should be able to take some confidence from the fact they made 205 against Chennai just a few weeks ago, albeit that match was also a loss though, with Chennai making 217 in the first innings.

Chennai might be the oldest team in this competition, but that hasn’t stopped them from competing to currently sit fourth in the table, being another one of the sides with five wins. Unfortunately for the MS Dhoni-led side, things haven't gone well as of late with losses coming against both Rajasthan and Punjab. The most recent loss came from the very last ball thanks to Sikandar Raza premediating a pull shot away to square leg for three. There were plenty of positives though, as Devon Conway brought up yet another half-century, his fifth for the tournament, and Tushar Deshpande bowled excellently with three wickets, albeit expensive, with 49 runs coming from him.

The pace at which Chennai scored has been the most impressive this season with them scoring at 9.57 runs per over to post the highest average total of 188 runs. Incredibly, it has been relatively risk-free with just five wickets being lost in an average innings. The powerplay has been where the side has really thrived, losing only six wickets through nine matches in that period, allowing them to go hard at the back end and score at almost 12rpo through the death overs. If Chennai can find a way to reduce the number of runs they conceded per match, which currently sits at 184, then the side could be almost unbeatable. Wickets will be the key to reducing the runs, but with just two bowlers inside the top 20 wicket-takers, it’s going to be tough with the current bowling group.

⚡ Key battle: Kyle Mayers has been key for LSG this season as their highest run scorer, averaging 33 at 9.58 runs per over in the tournament. While he has never faced Ravindra Jadeja in T20 cricket, he may struggle against the all-rounder, with Mayers averaging just 9.5 against left-arm orthodox spin across all T20 cricket, being dismissed 18 times while scoring just 171 runs.

📋 Stat attack: The team to bat first has won three of the five IPL matches in Lucknow.

• Moeen Ali to Kyle Mayers in T20s: 2/25 from 17 balls.
• Krunal Pandya to Devon Conway in T20s: 0/14 from six balls (two sixes).
• Lucknow has gone on to win 77% of matches when batting first.
• The average first innings score at this ground is just 152, the lowest of any IPL venue.
• Kyle Mayers and Ruturaj Gaikwad are both in the top five powerplay scorers this season with 204 and 194 runs respectively.
• Devon Conway needs 53 runs in this match to go past Faf du Plessis and take the Orange Cap.
• Moeen Ali has the best bowling figures from the two matches between these sides with 4/26.

Punjab Kings vs Mumbai Indians - Match Preview

🏏 3 May 2023 - 18:00 GMT +0

Two players in the top four all-time Indian Premier League (IPL) run-scorers, Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma, will again go head-to-head as captains with Punjab Kings (PBKS) hosting Mumbai Indians on Wednesday evening in Mohali. PBKS have taken ten points from nine games so far in the 2023 IPL with Mumbai Indians two points behind from one match fewer. This will be the 60th IPL fixture at the IS Bindra Stadium, where this season the average first innings score is 194.

The hosts are coming into this clash after a confidence-building last-ball victory over Chennai Super Kings (CSK) on Sunday. It was their third win from their last five matches, but they have not strung together back-to-back wins since their opening two fixtures of the season.

Chasing 201 for victory against CSK, the Kings got home in spite of no player scoring more than 42 runs. Rather, there were consistent contributions from across the top six, with everyone except Atharva Taide hitting at least one six and amassing their runs at a strike rate of between 145 - 210. Liam Livingstone recorded his highest score of the campaign with 40 runs from 24 balls, an innings which included four sixes. If the English batting all-rounder is coming into form, then this will only be good news for PBKS.

Ahead of Tuesday’s game, only Tushar Deshpande (17) had taken more wickets than Punjab’s Arshdeep Singh (15) in this competition. Although Arshdeep is still yet to go wicketless in the tournament, he has picked up no more than one wicket per game in five of his last six appearances, including his last three matches in Mohali. Meanwhile, Kagiso Rabada returned figures of 0-34 against CSK and his bowling average of 27.60 at the IS Bindra Stadium is his third-worst in 17 IPL venues.

Mumbai Indians have also been a little short in the bowling department in the 2023 IPL and their average total conceded of 187 runs per innings is the highest of all ten teams in the competition. They have had to contend with Jasprit Bumrah’s full-season unavailability, whilst Jofra Archer has managed only three games so far. However, in spite of these factors, they came into this fixture only two points behind Rajasthan Royals in second place. Furthermore, they will be buoyant after beating Rajasthan by six wickets with three balls remaining on Sunday, even though their predicted win percentage languished at 11% with four overs left and only 29% ahead of the final over.

After a poor run of form in international cricket in March, and three single-figure scores in his opening five innings of the 2023 IPL, Suryakumar Yadav responded well and came into this match after hitting 55, 57 and 43 in his last five innings. Cameron Green is another player in fine form and is averaging 48.60 across the tournament and 69.44 in his last four innings. On the other hand, captain Rohit Sharma has produced only one half-century all campaign and has been dismissed for a single-figure score in his last two innings.

With the ball, Piyush Chawla has been Mumbai’s standout performer. The 34-year-old leg-spinner took seven wickets from eight games played across the 2020 and 2021 IPL seasons, and was left unsold in 2022, but in 2023 has picked up 13 dismissals from eight matches. He will be targeting his best-ever IPL wickets return, 17 in 2008, and his strike rate of 14.31 so far this year is already better than any of his previous 14 campaigns. The winner of this match will take a 16-15 lead in the overall head-to-head and PBKS are targeting their fifth win from their last six clashes with Mumbai Indians.

⚡ Players to watch: Shikhar Dhawan missed a spell of games with a shoulder injury but is still the leading run scorer for PBKS in the tournament and the only player in the squad to have hit two half-centuries this year. Only Virat Kohli has scored more IPL runs than him in the history of the competition.

Suryakumar Yadav has wowed cricket fans across the globe in T20I cricket since making his national team debut in 2021, scoring 3x centuries and 13x fifties with a strike rate of 175.76 across his 46 innings. His last five innings have seen strike rates between 172 and 233.33 and he appears to be bringing his best international form to the IPL.

📋 Stat attack: Punjab Kings have had a different top wicket-taker (using economy rate as a tiebreaker) in each of their last five matches.

• Only Delhi Capitals lost more wickets per innings on average than Punjab Kings’ 7.56.
• Piyush Chawla has returned Mumbai Indians’ best bowling figures in three matches this season.
• Mumbai Indians have the highest bowling run rate (13.03) of all teams from over 17-20.
• Piyush Chawla to Shikhar Dhawan in the IPL: 2/92 from 59 balls.
• Kagiso Rabada to Rohit Sharma in T20s: 4/89 from 74 balls.
• Rabada has taken Suryakumar Yadav’s wicket three times for 55 runs from 39 balls bowled in the IPL.