General / Scott Ferguson / 07 May 2009 /

Scott Ferguson fancies a top-order match bet as team of bottomless batting talent take on a team that looks pancake thin.

Team News

Delhi

Warner has been replacing Sehwag (injured hand), but this displaced Vettori. With Nannes, Dilshan and de Villiers, all firing, it's a sign of good depth if Vettori has to go! Five batsmen have made 50s, covering for the underperforming Gambhir and Sehwag, while five bowlers have taken three wickets in an innings. Again, signs of very good depth. Only the part-time bowlers have been going for 8.5 per over or worse. Perhaps Glenn McGrath might get a game, he can't be left on the bench forever. With five wins out of seven and games in hand, they can afford to rotate the team.

Mumbai

The Sachin factor hasn't rubbed off on the rest of the squad. With three wins out of eight matches, only the rabble named after a talking car sit below them on the table, because Mumbai have beaten them twice. Duminy tops the runs tally and after him and Tendulkar, the cupboard is bare. Jayasuriya has scored one fifty and average 15 from the other six matches, Bravo has similar stats and the rest are just all-round poor. Napier has gone home, the batting depth is pancake thin. Zaheer Khan missed Wednesdays game with a shoulder injury, he may return. Malinga is the star bowler of this team with a dozen wickets, going at just five per over. Bravo and Jayasuriya have chipped in with eight and five respectively, but at more than eight per over. Harbhajan has been keeping things tidy at under seven per over, but three wickets from seven matches is a poor return for an elite bowler.

Venue, pitch and conditions

This is the last of three matches in East London. Both sides winning the toss have batted first and won. Chennai went nuts and scored 178 in a day-nighter, then tore Deccan apart bowling under lights. Mumbai could only rack up 148 against the shiny, talking cars, then struggled to bowl them out. Zaheer Khan took three as Malinga came out wicketless.

Rain is forecast tomorrow so bowlers will definitely have the advantage under lights.

Match odds

Delhi should start around the [1.73] mark, they've got the form on the board. Mumbai have beaten Kolkata twice and Chennai in the opening game. Their form is fading fast. Even if Delhi lose the toss, they'll still be odds-on as the gap between then and Mumbai is significant. Delhi have depth in batting and bowling, Mumbai rely too heavily on too few.

Top batsman

The opening batsmen keep coming up short while Delhi's best runscorers have been Dilshan and de Villiers. If you can get [5.0] or better for either of them, take it. Similarly, Tendulkar will always be short for Mumbai, but Duminy can usually be found at [5.0] because he doesnt open. Mumbai rely on him to hang around and save the innings, the top order rarely fires to keep him out of contention.

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The matchup between Duminy vs de Villiers appeals. JP Duminy has been a revelation in the past six months, almost single-handedly beating Australia in Australia, and now he's faced with holding the Mumbai innings together with sticky tape. He accumulates runs (238 so far), whereas de Villiers (181) has the only century of the series and little else to show for it. Back Duminy to score more runs at [1.8] or better.

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