It’s not long now till the start of the 2023 IPL so let’s look back at what happened last year, which two teams rate as good pre-tournament bets and consider a couple of players to look out for.
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Titanic performance from Gujarat
New franchise Gujarat Titans made a mockery of the theory that a new team may need a couple of seasons to find their feet in this league.
Under the inspired captaincy of Hardik Pandya, they showed that it’s often the best bowling team, not the best batting one, who wins big tournaments.
Rashid Khan was the leader of their bowling attack, Shubman Gill often set the tone at the top of the order while Pandya himself contributed with both runs and wickets. But the real secret to their success was all-round team efforts and tight bowling performances.
They topped the group stages, beat Rajasthan in the Qualifier and then again in the final to leave no doubts whatsoever they were the stan-out team of the season.
GT are favorites to win this season and you can back them at 6.50!
Mumbai’s revenge
The last two seasons have been ana absolute disaster for the IPL’s most-successful franchise, not just missing out on the Playoffs on both occasions but actually finishing bottom last season. However, there were a few explanations for their failure last season.
The loss of the Pandya brothers to other franchises, the injury to Jofra Archer that kept him out for the whole season, Sky Yadav’s own injury that meant he missed a good chunk of the campaign, the gamble on players with little or no IPL experience that didn’t come off.
But there are good reasons to think they can return to the Mumbai of old, with a Playoff place the bare minimum. And once they get that far, their winning mentality and past experience of getting over the line may kick in.
For starters, in Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan and Sky Yadav they have three Indian players who are a regular part of India’s T20 side; no-one else can boast that.
Of those, Yadav, who as we said missed most of last season and will be fit this time round, is the most important. And he’s had a golden last eight months or so for India in both ODIs and T20Is so will come into his year’s IPL full of confidence and form.
Youngster Tilak Varma, who already impressed last year, should be even better this year with a season now under his belt.
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Another area of probable improvement is the direct swap of veteran Mumbai stalwart Kieron Pollard for Aussie Cameron Green.
Pollard has been huge for Mumbai in the past, but age has caught up with him and last year he had a season to forget. He’ll stay on as batting coach, a good move, but the arrival of Green will give Mumbai better balance.
More of a bowling all-rounder, he’ll give skipper Sharma more of an option with the ball than Pollard, while providing the same lower middle-order batting power that Pollard has over the years.
Assuming they play Green, Archer and Tristan Stubbs/Tim David (similar players) as their three first-choice overseas players, they’d be well-advised to play either Jhye Richardson or Jason Behrendorff as their fourth.
At times last season they lacked a menacing fast bowler and either of those is more than capable of opening the bowling and bowling at the death, areas they struggled in last season, with Archer out injured and Jasprit Bumrah having an uncharacteristically poor season.
If they get their team selection right, they could go all the way.
The slightly bad news is that the oddsmakers are aware of their threat and have them as the 2nd favourites at 7.00, but they still rate a good bet.
Our pick: Back Mumbai Indians to win the IPL at 7.00!
Can the ultimate underdogs become top dogs?
If Mumbai rate a good bet as favourites, then so do the team at the opposite end of the betting. The Sunrisers went on an excellent run at one stage last season which was then followed by an awful run, eventually finishing eighth.
But SRH’s changes in the overseas department look good ones. Kane Wiliamson is no T20 player and was released, while the super-expensive Nicholas Pooran had a shocking season himself and has also moved on.
In come the brilliant Englishman Harry Brook, international team-mate Adil Rashid and New Zealand star Glenn Phillips, providing far better options.
The captaincy is now in the hands of South African Aiden Markram, who is fresh from winning the recent South African T20 competition as skipper for the SA version of the Sunrisers franchise. A huge part of that success was also down to all-rounder Marco Jensen. He’ll be at Markram’s disposal, too.
If those two can replicate their performances, with the help of speedster Umran Malik, all-rounder Washington Sundar and newcomer Mayank Agarwal, they might surprise a few and possibly go all the way at a huge price.
We also recommend: Back Sunrisers Hyderabad to win the IPL at 12.0!
Players to keep an eye on…
Harry Brook
Not any people outside England knew too much about middle-order batsman Brook a year ago but his emergence in international cricket has been nothing short of spectacular. It’s mostly been in Tests he’s caught the eye but he’s very much a three-format player and has also put in some incredible T20 performances.
If Brook he can handle the pressure of the IPL in his debut season, and there’s no reason why he can’t, he could be one of the stars of the tournament at SRH.
TIP Look to back Harry Brook at anything above 5.0 to be their top batsman in any given game.
Ravindra Jadeja
If Brook is new to the IPL, then Jadeja certainly isn’t. He’s part of the furniture at CSK in their many successes but this time, he has a point to prove. He started last season as captain at CSK, but the extra responsibility got to him, they lost matches, and he was badly out of form until things got even worse and he got injured.
Jaheda will be back as their brilliant all-rounder without the pressure of the captaincy this time round. And if his recent performances against Australia in the test series are anything to go by, he’s back to his best.
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