Betting tips / Paul Bugeja / 22 May 2012 / Leave a comment Bet Now View Market

In an Indian Premier League match in which the winner moves forward to the final, Tobias Gourlay thinks Kolkata's spinners are the key to predicting who will take out the match.

Delhi
The Daredevils have known about this match for a while, winning eight of their first ten games to cruise through to the last four.

In recent games they have tried to bring some of this season's quieter batsmen into form, helping Mahela Jayawardene and Ross Taylor to their first fifties of IPL5.

Morne Morkel continues to lead the bowling attack. The South African took 4/20 on a helpful pitch in Dharamsala on Saturday, but that was the first time in nine games that he'd taken more than one wicket.

Kolkata
Gautam Gambhir is the Knight Riders' captain and leading batsman.

Sunil Narine, the West Indian off-spinner, bosses the bowling department. He's claimed 22 victims so far at a better economy rate (5.14) than anyone else who's got more than six wickets.

Venue & conditions
The match will be played on the neutral turf of the Subrata Roy Sahara Stadium in Pune. In eight group-stage games there teams batting first averaged a shade under 150, but went on to win 5/8.

Match Odds
The away team won the group-stage meetings between these two. Both are visitors for this match in Pune. Delhi won 11/16 games overall and are slight favourites to beat opponents whose final tally was 10 wins in 16.

Kolkata's last outing was in Pune on Saturday, when 136/4 turned out to be easily enough to beat the local Warriors. Delhi won there in late April, largely thanks to Sehwag's 48-ball 87*.

The Knight Riders' more recent success offers a clue to the pitch in Pune. Their spinners - Narine, Shakib al Hasan and Iqbal Abdullah - took a combined 4-53 from 11 overs and restricted Pune to 102/8.

If the pitch is similar on Tuesday, Kolkata's bowling attack will be suited to the surface than Delhi's and the Knight Riders will be a reasonable price to cause a small upset.

Top Delhi Batsman
Sehwag scored an unprecedented five consecutive fifties midway through the group-stage, but the most recent of those was three weeks ago and his most recent scores are 23, 4, 4 and 8.

Warner made 79 in the Daredevils' final group game and might share favouritism with his captain at around 4.0.

Top Kolkata Batsman
Gautam Gambhir, the market favourite, has made six half-centuries in IPL5. Only Chris Gayle, who dominates this form of the game like Don Bradman used to the Test batting charts, has passed 50 more often.

The rest of the Knight Riders have three fifties between them, but Brendon McCullum seems finally to have adjusted to this season's pitches, scoring 37 or more in five of his last seven knocks. The New Zealander is likely to go off around 4.5.

Betfair Best Bet
Back Kolkata @2.06