The Hattrick - IPL 2024 - Outright Winners and CSK vs RCB 1st Match

Welcome back to The HatTrick, the live cricket betting podcast brought to you by cricket-betting.com. I'm your host, Ed Hawkins, and it is the big one: Who wins the IPL? This is part two of our IPL preview shows. 

Our first show revealed the best bets for batters and bowlers in the tournament outrights. This time, we are looking at the outright winner market: which teams to follow and which teams to swerve. We have our Three Wise Men back again to tell you about the outstanding wagers, so a double hat trick will be on this show because we also have the first match prediction previewed — that's CSK taking on RCB. 

All the best bets coming at the end of the segments for those sections. We've got Manish on stats, we've got Ben on specials, and we've got John W., the former odds compiler, to give you all the best angles. Check cricket-betting.com, as I said, for all your IPL betting needs. Hit the subscribe button and give love on the podcast provider of your choice, please.

Our bookie this week is 10Cric at 10cr10.com. Outright odds in a second.

John, I want to come to you first. You used to have to price up these markets. What do you look for?

"Yeah, right, the market. Yeah, I think you look for pedigree. You obviously look at the auction, and you look at the balanced side, really. I mean, what I tend to do in these tournaments, from a compiler's perspective, is you look at the balanced sides, you look at the sides with pedigree, and then you obviously look at the acquisitions from a player's standpoint. 

I tend to look at just the beginning of the tournament. I look at where the value is because, I mean, I fancy Mumbai here, but Mumbai is a short price. And you've got to ask yourself, even if they won their first five games, in this format, are they going to shorten a lot? So, I tend to go, when I'm a punter, I tend to go for what I think is the value. So, I look at sides and think to myself, okay, if this team gets off to a fast start, what could they be after saying game 20 or something like that? 

So, I tend to look from a punter's perspective. I look at the value in the outer market. From a bookmaker's perspective, from a compiling perspective, you look at the sides with pedigree, the sides with balanced sides, because usually, that's a good format to work from."

Okay, here are the IPL 2024 outright odds at 10cr10.com: Mumbai at 4.57, Chennai at 5.39, RCB at 8.48, the Royals at 8.8, Gujarat at 8.96, Lucknow Super Giants at 10.6, Sunrisers Hyderabad at 10.7, KKR at 11.9, DC at 14.12, and Punjab at 16.3.

Manish, am I right in saying CSK and MI are dominant in the IPL? What are the qualities of an IPL winner?

"Yeah, of course, as you mentioned, you should belong to CSK or MI. But, I mean, apart from that, you should have a good opening pair, one of whom should make it to the top three of the tournament. You need a star finisher, something like Dhoni or Rinku Singh. 

You need a death bowler specialist who is very close to the Purple Cap by the end of the tournament, something like Bravo, Bumrah, Shami. You need a spinner or two who can stem the run flow in the middle period of the innings and can attack when needed, someone like Rashid Khan. 

And you need a captain who understands the dynamics of the shortest format because you need to make quite a lot of decisions that you haven't discussed in the dressing room; you have to do it on the field. So, a shrewd captain and luck — a lot of T20 matches are decided by who wins the toss because chasing teams clearly have an advantage of knowing where to go. And luck does play a major role, and you wish the current situations to go your way. So, this is what it takes, in general, to win an IPL."

Okay, thanks, Manish.

Ben, betting's all about taking the wrong prices. We're going to be talking about all these teams at various stages. Can you name a team here and now which isn't a wrong price? So, basically, a team that you don't want to be betting on because they're poor value.

"I mean, we should always say RCB because they'll never win. That's just a joke about RCB, isn't it? But, realistically, as a punter, though, I quite like them at 8.48. They're a very good side. They've got the opening partnership, they've got the captain, they've got Virat Kohli. There's a debate about whether you think Virat Kohli is good for a side. I don't think he is. The humorous side of me says RCB. 

Realistically, Gujarat at nearly nines to John's point before, if they start with a flyer, then maybe they're shortened, but you've lost two very important players in the captain and the lead bowler from last year, who won probably too many games for them. 

And if you lose that, you've got to be choosing a bowler that is of similar ilk, and there aren't many around, let's be fair, that have proven themselves in IPL history that were available. So, I think Gujarat at nearly nine is not a good one, and the rest, I don't think, have any hope. Punjab, DC, KKR, I think they're rightly priced. MI and CSK, for me, are the two ones that are going to win this. I don't think anyone else is going to."

Okay, thanks, Ben.

We've got CSK vs. RCB coming up in that match preview. Now, for the big questions: Can we get a hat-trick consensus on your IPL 2024 winner, please? Manish, don't say RCB, please.

"Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm going to say RCB. You see, CSK and MI obviously have a good team. They have the history of winning; they know how to do it. But on paper, I think Virat, Glenn Maxwell, Green and Rajat Patidar, for me, this is one of the best batting lineups in this tournament. 

In the bowling department, they have Siraj, Aakash Deep, Azar, who is a set and Lockie Ferguson for this one. Excellent. The BCCI recently handed out five fast-bowling contracts, and three of those players are in RCB. So, as far as the seamers' department is concerned, they have the best of the lot at the moment. 

The spin department is the only place where I think they would struggle, given the fact that they have released Wanindu Hasaranga. I don't know why they did that, but Karn Sharma is not a bad bowler, and they have Maxwell as well as a part-timer in that line-up. So, I would say RCB has a very, very good chance."

Okay, Ben, I think you're probably with me that RCB won't win until they get rid of Kohli, but that is hard to show on that. We could do an entire show on RCB, and Manish mentioned their bowlers. You're not going to go for RCB, who are you going to go for?

"CSK for me, for all the reasons you need to win a tournament. You need a strong opening partnership; they have that. You need a flexible middle order; they have that. They have key players. They can use things for me, though, that stands out and as to why they consistently do well in this tournament, apart from that one year which was recent, is MS Dhoni. 

I think he is the greatest captain in cricket, certainly in the short format. I think he has everything that you need as a captain. So for me, if MS Dhoni wasn't there, I would tend to go towards Mumbai, but with him there, I think he's just there. You've got Mitchell Santner, who had an outstanding World Cup; he has your spin department. 

And what Manish said was interesting. I think this is where RCB would struggle, and in the IPL, you do need spinners. So, I think CSK has that; they have the bowlers, they have the batsmen, they have the middle order. It's going to be a CSK vs. MI final. I'd be very surprised if it wasn't."

John, right, CSK vs. MI final. I think you disagreed, and you're going to go for a bigger price than that.

"I don't disagree that I think MI and CSK are actually nailed for the playoffs, and it's probably a likely final. I think MI are deserving favorites. The only question mark with MI is the captaincy.

I'm not too sure that's a happy camp. I think the Ambani situation has put a little bit of a question mark on that, but their side is quality all the way down. I do like Mumbai, but, as I said at the start of the show, I think you go for the value. 

For me, outright, Gujarat, and for me, the value has got to be with Sunrisers Hyderabad. Sunrisers at 10.7, with that side? I mean, they lacked bowling last year, but you've got Kumar coming into the side, which should improve that. Also, if you remember rightly, the Sunrisers last season, the South Africans arrived very late to the scene, about four or five matches in, which got them off to a very slow start, and they didn't really recover. 

The Harry Brook thing didn't work out; though he got one century, he didn't really get enough runs for them. But I just think that Sunrisers, I think they're around for a good season. 

I'll be very surprised if they don't get to the playoffs, and I think that's where the value lies. 10.7 for me, I can see that contracting in the first few weeks of the season. I think they've got off to fast starts, so Sunrisers for me at 10.7 to win.

That's the first hat-trick of this IPL preview show. We've got another hat trick, a double hat trick coming up, because we've got CSK vs RCB. From past performances, our betting tips are at 1 point level stakes so far, early days. Ben, - 2.48, Manish, - 5, and John Wright, - 4. Apologies to John, he's very cross, as an example, got it wrong last week. Now, time for more action.

10Cric has got the match odds for this opening match at 10cr10.com: 1.65 for CSK vs 2.2 for RCB. 3.10 for Kohli top RCB bat, but if you want to waste your money, 2.95 for Gaikwad top CSK bat, top CSK bat. Loads of specials, Ben, get stuck into. Let's be as quick as we can because we're short on time.

One of your spotted before we begin on the specials: With 10Cric, they've got some really good free bets to start with. So, they've got what's called an IPL superstar. I would get going with that one and then choose your free bets from there. So that one is a 50% bonus up to 5,000, and then you get a free bet back. Start with that, and that does improve your betting odds.

Honestly, I struggled with this one. Glenn Maxwell to score 50 at 4.4 is a very interesting one. Gaikwad at 2.95 for CSK top batter, it's usually going to be in the top three, so that's a good shout. It was an interesting one. I think that whoever's pricing this has done a very good job; there weren't any obvious mistakes to me. So, the one for me, I think I'm going to go with Glenn Maxwell, 4.4 for a 50.

Manish, Chepauk is one for spinners. Using that for your bets, is that a fact?

But I won't be using that for my bet. Spinners, this is how MS Dhoni has built a fortress at this stadium. His use of spinners was phenomenal across the IPLs. 

The main part about spinners here is they go under seven, especially the top ones like Ashwin, Jadeja, Harbhajan, Imran Tahir; all of them have gone under seven. So yeah, it's a spinner's paradise, if you will, and that is probably where RCB will struggle and will go on to lose the match, perhaps. 

But I will stick with my comment of saying RCB has the best batting lineup of the tournament, and with that, I would go with the top batting side to be Royal Challengers Bangalore at 2.05.

Right, what have you seen?

I think that, as Manish says, the venue makes this match a bit of a mismatch. I agree with him. I think RCB's part-time spin is not going to cut it here. You know, when you've got Tahir, you've got Jadeja, you've got Moeen, and RCB, I've got a 36-year-old Karn Sharma. I know he's quite reliable, but him and Maxwell are going to have to bowl, that's going to cut the way over. 

Also, if you look at RCB last year, you say the batting was strong, but it was only Faf and Kohli; they, Faf, Kohli, Maxwell, and after that, not one player scored over 150 runs in the entire tournament. So, I think their batting is lopsided. 

I think where RCB will be let down this year is in the middle to lower order. They're going to have to rely a lot on Cameron Green and Maxwell because the lower order is poor. So, I think CSK will win this game, and I think they will win it quite convincingly.

The one bet I like is Shivam Dube. I think Shivam Dube is a great player, and I think he's on the cusp of cementing a place in that World Cup side. So, over 17.5 runs for him, I like at 1.85. That would be my bet — Shivam Dube to score over 17.5 in this game. Dube wins 19% of the time as top bat for Chennai, by the way, so he's going to be valuable.

RCB, you've got to get your hand in that team. For me, good, thrusting batters like Faf and Kohli win at 26% each as top bats in the last two years, so not much value there. But there we go, that's your double hat trick for the IPL preview show. We've given you the winners of the tournament as well: John going for Sunrisers, Manish going for RCB, and Ben going for Chennai Super Kings.

Check out cricket-betting.com for all your betting needs. Until we return next week as we preview more IPL matches, we're here throughout the biggest cricket betting event of the year. We'll see you next time on The Hat Trick.