The most exciting domestic competition of the year starts next week so we’ve delved into each squad to pick out our best bets for the 2023 IPL season.
Chennai Super Kings
Chennai are one of the most successful teams in IPL history, most recently winning the competition in 2021, but they struggled in their defence of the title last year and the side looks to be one of the weaker ones on paper.
The all-rounders are definitely the strong point for Chennai with Jadeja, Ali and Stokes but I’m sceptical from a betting perspective if they’ll score enough runs or take enough wickets to top the charts for Chennai.
Gaikwad was supreme with the bat in 2021 but disappointed last year so I’m siding with a bet on the bowlers market, and siding with youngster Mukesh Choudhary to top the charts for the Yellows. Choudhary took 16 wickets in 13 games in his breakthrough year, which is by no means a disappointing return, and made him Chennai’s joint top wicket taker for the season, with Bravo, who has since retired.
I was expecting to see Conway at the head of the market when the top team batsmen were priced up but to see 11/4 on him was a major shock. He could have an outstanding tournament and he could be severely overpriced at 11/4.
Delhi Capitals
Delhi have been massively hindered by the loss of Rishabh Pant, but they still have incredible depth and quality. David Warner is an IPL great and captains the side, with him likely to open the batting with Prithvi Shaw, another exciting young Indian. However, they did sign England’s keeper-batsman Phil Salt to replace Pant with the gloves, so it’ll be interesting to see the makeup of the top 3, should all 3 play. Whether Warner opens the batting or bats at 3, he will be very tough to topple as the Delhi top scorer.
With the ball Anrich Nortje is the standout, but is well backed up by Indians Chetan Sakariya and Axar Patel. They also seemed intent on buying bowler Mukesh Kumar, who they eventually won a bidding war for. Kumar has 19 wickets in his 17 t20’s and will be hoping this is the breakthrough season for him. If Nortje plays every game for Delhi he will be hard to beat in the top wicket taker market, but Kumar could represent excellent value at a bigger price, and it would be no surprise to see him as one of the big breakout stars of the 2023 season.
Gujurat Titans
Gujarat were absolutely superb in winning last year’s tournament and they have maintained a lot of the team that took them to the title. Their bowling looks incredibly strong again after they’ve added Shivam Mavi to an already impressive lineup, and with the star of the tournament Rashid Khan they will be tough to beat again.
With the bat they again look strong, Saha is exciting at the top of the order, and there’s few players coming into the tournament with the form that Gill has been showing. You could argue they maybe lack a little bit of depth with their batting but the same argument was made last year, and we know how that ended.
The bowling attack is too difficult to split, we know Rashid Khan will take wickets regularly, but he’s competing with some top bowlers and his price looks a little skinny, and with him there, I’m reluctant to take him on. With the bat, however, I don’t see anyone in this team outscoring Shubman Gill. Last year, it felt like Hardik carried the batting at times for the Titans, yet he finished just 4 runs clear of Gill. His form coming into the tournament is as good as anyone and I’ll be shocked if Gill doesn’t have a big season.
Kolkata Knight Riders
Shreyas Iyer leads the Knight Riders again, but it has to be said that they look one of the weaker teams on paper. They have the destructive Russell and Iyer will score runs as he always does but there seems to be far more unknowns with this KKR team than some of the others.
With only Russell and Narine assured of starting spots of the overseas players it’s tough to call too much in this side, but if he does get a regular spell in the side, Litton Das could well be worth taking a chance on to top score for them. Last season they couldn’t settle with their opening batsmen, with the pair at the end both being different to the pair at the start, as well as changing their WK throughout the tournament and Das could solve both these issues. Alternatively, at a huge price, Jagadeesan may be worth £1 or 2, he has been brought in as a keeper-batsman and as mentioned above it’s something they struggled with last season, if they opt to use different overseas options to Das, he could be great value.
They struggled with the ball as well last season with Russell being their leading wicket taker, despite bowling just 28.1 overs, it was an astonishing effort from Russell, but the senior bowlers should have been disappointed that a part timer took more than them. They have strengthened the bowling bringing in Thakur and Ferguson, and I’m siding with the former. Again it’s tough to know which overseas players KKR will opt to use, so siding with the Indian seems the smarter play. However the best bet for KKR seems to be for them to finish bottom of the group.
Lucknow Super Giants
Lucknow look on paper to be one of, if not the most exciting team in the tournament. Rahul and de Kock is a supreme opening pair and with exciting overseas all rounders such as Stoinis, Mayers and Sams, they have strength in depth as well as fire power in the starting 11.
Rahul is Mr Consistent in the IPL and you know he is going to get 600+ runs in almost every season, so it would take a brave man to take him on, with de Kock looking the only possibility, but with the consistency of the captain, Rahul would be the pick.
With the ball they have some great spin options, Bishnoi and Pandya have showed their class in this competition before and Avesh Khan took 18 wickets for them last year. Similar to KKR it’s tough to predict which overseas players will play with such a wealth of talent on offer, so again I’m sticking with the Indians, and going with last season’s top wicket taker for the Super Giants, Avesh Khan.
Mumbai Indians
Mumbai were the most disappointing team last season, but they have a jaw-dropping squad for this year’s tournament. They splashed the cash on Aussie Cam Green, as well as having Jofra Archer and Jhye Richardson in their bowling ranks. They’ve kept their strong Indian players with Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan and Jasprit Bumrah all being retained.
With the bat it’s hard to look past Suryakumar Yadav, the man has been hovering around the top of the t20 batting world rankings over the last year and he played a big part in India reaching the final of the World Cup. He was disappointing last season but with the 5x champs looking to make a comeback this season, he should play a huge role. Cam Green however, has opened the batting for Australia at times and at 25/1 he could well be worth a quid or two.
With the ball Mumbai have an absolute embarrassment of riches, particularly in the pace department but the question mark is the lack of a first class spinner. With so many options with the overseas bowlers I’d be siding with Bumrah to be top wicket taker, but young spinner Hrithik Shokeen could give you a big run for your money at a massive price. He played in Mumbai’s last game last season, he went wicketless but impressed with an economy of just 5.75 rpo. With the lack of an obvious spin option, if Shokeen can nail down a place in the side, he could certainly go close at a massive price.
Punjab Kings
Punjab have already had their first blow of the season with Bairstow being ruled out, and with only 7 overseas selected to begin with, it makes their team selection a little easier to predict. They broke the IPL record to acquire Sam Curran, and have kept big hitter Liam Livingstone, who I expect to both have big tournaments, but possibly fall a little short in the betting markets.
Shikhar Dhawan has been a model of consistency in the IPL for years now and despite Livingstone coming in and getting a few huge scores at some stage, I’d rather stick with the consistent opener to top the runs for the Kings. Matt Short is interesting for them as Bairstow’s replacement, he scores heaps of runs in the Big Bash and could be fantastic value if he starts for Punjab.
Rabada and Curran will be the headline acts with the ball for the Kings, particularly given the price tags, and I’m siding with the former. Arshdeep Singh adds a lot to this bowling attack but Rabada is in good form and his pace at the death is a nightmare for batsmen. Last year he took 23 wickets in 13 games and I expect more of the same from the South African.
Rajasthan Royals
The double R’s are possibly the easiest team to analyse from a betting perspective, simply because you’d have to be a very, very brave man or woman to take on last year’s leading run scorer or wicket taker. Chahal and Buttler set the tournament alight last season, Buttler hit 4 centuries and was 247 runs clear of the 2nd top run scorer in the tournament, while Chahal took 27 wickets and was 8 clear of the next Rajasthan wicket taker, who isn’t playing this year.
If you wanted to take a chance on them not repeating their form at bigger prices Jaiswal showed glimpses of unbelievable talent last season with the bat and will open with Buttler again this year. They also seem to lack an obvious quick to partner Trent Boult at the death, so Kuldeep Sen may get the nod at a huge price, but the pick from us would be side with last year’s star men or avoid altogether.
Royal Challangers Bangalore
RCB look to have an incredibly strong batting lineup again this year and choosing between Faf du Plessis, Virat Kohli and Glenn Maxwell is a thankless task so the advice from us would be to avoid their batting market and just enjoy 3 of the worlds best playing together every game.
With the ball, it looks an obvious choice, Hasaranga led the wicket column in the World Cup and was 2nd in the IPL last season, and despite Harshal Patel impressing massively over the last 2 seasons, the leg spinner just looks impossible to see past here.
Sunrisers Hyderabad
The Sunrisers to me are the most interesting team at this year’s IPL, they are languishing at the bottom of the outright market, having had a few quiet years, but the team they have assembled this year looks absolutely fantastic.
With the bat, they spent big on bringing England’s young star, Harry Brook, into the side, as well as Mayank Agarwal to open the batting. You’d expect that pair, as well as captain Aiden Markram to play every game, and with Rahul Tripathi blasting it at the top of the order it already has the makings of a good batting lineup.
The other 2 overseas spots will likely be filled by 2 of Adil Rashid, Glenn Phillips and Heinrich Klaasen, which again adds real star quality to the side.
With the ball, you could argue there isn’t a more exciting bowling lineup in the tournament, with Natarajan and Bhuvi Kumar consistently performing to a high level, and Umran Malik’s express pace being one of the highlights of last years tournament. They also spent a fair amount on consistent all rounders Washington Sundar and Abishek Sharma, meaning whichever overseas players they opt to play, they’ll have solid Indian options to fit around them. The last player worth mentioning is dynamic young all rounder Vivrant Sharma, who had an average of over 56 in the 21-22 domestic season, and will be looking to break through on the big stage.
Not only are Sunrisers my pick for the tournament at 12/1, but I can also see Harry Brook having an unbelievable first IPL season and go very close to landing the top tournament run scorer, as well as leading Sunrisers charge.
Best Bets
Sunrisers to win the tournament - 12/1 Harry Brook top Sunrisers batter - 3/1
Harry Brook top tournament batter - 25/1 EW
Anrich Nortje top Delhi bowler - 5/1
Anrich Nortje top tournament bowler - 33/1 EW
Shikhar Dhawan top Punjab batter - 5/6
Hrithki Shokeen top Mumbai bowler - 20/1
Cam Green top Mumbai batter - 25/1
Shubman Gill top Titans batter - 6/4
Shubman Gill top tournament batter - 9/1
Mukesh Choudhary top Chennai bowler - 9/2
Devon Conway top Chennai batter - 11/4
Kuldeep Sen top Rajasthan bowler - 12/1
Brook, Warner, Rahul, Buttler to top score for their teams - 27/1
Rabada, Chahal and Hasaranga to take most wickets for their teams - 19/2
Choudhary & Conway top batter/bowler for Chennai - 20/1
Conway & Brook to top score for their teams - 14/1
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