IPL 2022: Gujarat Titans v Lucknow Super Giants Betting Tips

Gujarat Titans and Lucknow Super Giants square off this afternoon at Wankhede Stadium in the battle of the newbies. There’s a lot to look forward to in this match with star-studded line-ups, big-name captains and superb bowling attacks.

Gujarat Titans will be led by Hardik Pandya in the tournament while KL Rahul will skipper Lucknow Super Giants.

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Gujarat Titans made an enormous statement weeks before the 2022 auction by spending 42% of their purse on three ‘megastars’. Inaugural captain Hardik Pandya, all-time great Rashid Khan and opening batter Shubman Gill.

As a result, squad depth in the batting order appears to be lacking, particularly after English opening batsman Jason Roy withdrew from its year’s edition. Potential opener Matthew Wade has just three IPL career appearances to his name, whilst they’re likely going to have to turn to the uncapped Abhinav Manohar as well as struggling pair David Miller (124 runs from eight innings in IPL 2021) and Wriddiman Saha (131 runs from nine innings) to complement captain Pandya, who himself has not played any cricket since the 2021 T20 World Cup.

At their strongest, Lucknow’s best XI are going to be an intimidating force to be reckoned with. Unlike their opponents, they’re going to have to negotiate the absence of three key starters due to national team commitments. Jason Holder, Kyle Mayers and Marcus Stoinis are all unavailable for the first week, which at least on paper leaves them with just two all-round options in spinner Krunal Pandya. Krunal’s 2021 IPL stats (five wickets from 33.1 overs at an average of 53.00) were his worst in a single competition and Krishnappa Gowtham, who has made just two IPL appearances since returning season figures of 1/166 for Rajasthan in 2019.

The Super Giants are blessed with match-winning talent, particularly in the powerplay overs with both bat and ball. Wicketkeeper KL Rahul was ten runs shy of the ‘Orange Cap’ in 2021 with an equal-best six half-centuries, being involved in seven 30+ run opening partnerships with Mayank Agarwal in the process. His fellow opener Quinton de Kock was part of six with Rohit Sharma and Ishan Kishan at Mumbai. De Kock remains a strong batter with three of his four best run hauls in an IPL competition coming since 2019. The bowling will be led by fast bowler Avesh Khan, whose 24 wickets for Delhi last year included six from 22 powerplay overs at an economy rate of just 6.40rpo.

Despite the Super Giants missing some key players, I would put my money on KL Rahul’s side to get their IPL campaign off to a winning start with their two opening batters playing a major role.

Key Stat

In the T20s since 2020, 14 out of 20 matches have been won by the chasing team at the Wankhede Stadium.

Three of the last four IPL games at Wankhede Stadium (prior to the 2022 season opener) were won by the pre-match outsider.

The average first innings score at Wankhede Stadium in 2021 was 176, or 205 for teams who batted first and won.

Mohammed Shami has dismissed Krunal Pandya three times in the IPL for just 14 runs conceded.

Players To Watch

If Lucknow opener KL Rahul can survive the six-over powerplay as he did in nine of 13 innings last season, his toughest battle could be conquering middle overs specialist Rashid Khan. The former world no. 1 has taken KL’s wicket three times from six H2Hs, at an average of just 11.00 and an economy rate of 4.60rpo.

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