IPL 2019 Predictions and Betting Tips

SRH Team News

Sunrisers Hyderabad have retained most of their players from the previous season. This time, they focused more on bolstering their batting department at the auctions and roped in quality international batsmen Martin Guptill, Wriddhiman Saha and Jonny Bairstow. Their batting will be further boosted with the return of David Warner who did not play last year as he was serving suspension for the ball-tampering scandal. The Australian opening batsman, however, is likely to be unavailable for the first and last week of the IPL 2019. The Kane Williamson-led Sunrisers have traded Shikhar Dhawan for Shahbaz Nadeem, Abhishek Sharma and Vijay Shankar.

SRH IPL Performances

Sunrisers Hyderabad are one of the former champions of the IPL, having the tournament in 2016. Their performance overall has been very good and they have qualified for the playoffs four times in the six seasons they have played. Last year, they topped the league standings with nine wins and five losses from their fourteen matches. After losing the first qualifier against the Chennai Super Kings, they beat Kolkata Knight Riders in the second qualifier to set up a re-match with CSK in the final. The Sunrisers, however, were beaten once again as they finished runners-up.

SRH 2019 Squad

Basil Thampi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Hooda, Manish Pandey, T Natarajan, Ricky Bhui, Sandeep Sharma, Siddarth Kaul, Shreevats Goswami (wk), Khaleel Ahmed, Yusuf Pathan, Billy Stanlake, David Warner, Kane Williamson, Rashid Khan, Mohammad Nabi, Shakib Al Hasan, Jonny Bairstow, Wriddhiman Saha, Martin Guptill

RCB Team News

Captained by Virat Kohli, the Royal Challengers Bangalore have made quite a few changes to their squad for the IPL 12. They released Quinton de Kock, Brendon McCullum, Mandeep Singh, Chris Woakes, Corey Anderson and Sarfraz Khan ahead of the auctions. They roped in allrounder Shivam Dube and West Indian batsman Shimron Hetmyer for Rs. 5 crore and Rs. 4.20 crore respectively, making them the team's two most expensive purchases. RCB have also signed South Africa's Heinrich Klaasen and have traded Mandeep Singh for Marcus Stoinis. The team, however, does not have any experienced opening batsman other than Parthiv Patel which means captain Kohli may have to consider opening the innings.

RCB IPL Performances

Royal Challengers Bangalore are the perennial underachievers of the Indian Premier League. Despite having a star- studded line-up, they are still searching for that elusive maiden IPL title. After coming runners-up in 2016, they have had disappointing seasons back-to-back. They were stuck at the bottom in 2017 and finished sixth last season with six wins and eight defeats from fourteen matches. RCB did not start off too well last time, losing three of their first four matches. But they managed to salvage some pride towards the tail-end of the tournament by winning three of their last four league encounters.

RCB Squad

Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Parthiv Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal, Tim Southee, Umesh Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Kulwant Khejroliya, Washington Sundar, Pawan Negi, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Moeen Ali, Mohammed Siraj, Colin de Grandhomme, Shimron Hetmyer, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Devdutt Padikkal, Shivam Dube, Heinrich Klaasen, Himmat Singh, Milind Kumar, Prayas Barman, Akshdeep Nath

KKR Team News

Led by Dinesh Karthik, Kolkata Knight Riders have retained most of their gun players from last time. The West Indian pair of Andre Russel and Sunil Narine, who have helped the team win matches on their own on quite a few occasions, are among the ones to have been retained. KKR purchased a total of eight players at the IPL 2019 auction including England batsman Joe Denly, New Zealand pace bowler Lockie Ferguson and West Indies all-rounder Carlos Brathwaite - their costliest signing for a whopping Rs. 5 crore. The team has released the Aussie pace duo of Mitchell Starc and Mitchell Johnson.

KKR IPL Performances

Kolkata Knight Riders are two-time champions with title triumphs back in 2012 and 2014. They had a forgettable first three IPL seasons but have been pretty impressive in the last three editions where they made it past the league round each time. Last year, the Knight Riders won eight and lost six out of the fourteen league matches to finish third on the points table. They went into the playoffs on the back of three successive wins and continued their winning run with a 25-run victory over Rajasthan Royals in the Eliminator. However, they could not advance further as they were knocked out by Sunrisers Hyderabad in the second qualifier.

KKR Squad

Dinesh Karthik, Robin Uthappa, Chris Lynn, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Shubman Gill, Piyush Chawla, Kuldeep Yadav, Prasidh Krishna, Shivam Mavi, Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Carlos Brathwaite, Lockie Ferguson, Anrich Nortje, Nikhil Naik, Harry Gurney, Yarra Prithviraj, Joe Denly, Shrikant Mundhe

MI Team News

Rohit Sharma will continue to captain Mumbai Indians who have retained many Indian players like Jasprit Bumrah, Mayank Markande, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya and Krunal Pandya. MI have bolstered their batting department with the addition of Quinton De Kock and their biggest buy at the auction was fast bowler Barinder Sran (Rs. 3.40 crore). Yuvraj Singh, Lasith Malinga and Rasikh Salam were the others among the six players purchased. Mumbai Indians, however, did not pick any back-up wristspinner for Mayank Markande.

MI IPL Performances

With three title wins in the bag, Mumbai Indians are one of the most successful teams in the Indian Premier League. They are the runners-up of the 2010 edition and were crowned champions in 2013, 2015 and 2017. The team has made seven playoffs appearances in the previous nine seasons. Mumbai Indians, however, failed to break into the top four last time as they finished fifth in the league standings with six wins and eight losses. They began their IPL 2018 campaign with defeats in their first three matches and remained pretty inconsistent all through the tournament.

MI Squad

Rohit Sharma (C), Yuvraj Singh, Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, Krunal Pandya, Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, Mayank Markande, Rahul Chahar, Anukul Roy, Siddhesh Lad, Aditya Tare, Quinton de Kock, Evin Lewis, Kieron Pollard, Ben Cutting, Mitchell McClenaghan, Adam Milne, Jason Behrendorff, Quinton de Kock, Lasith Malinga, Anmolpreet Singh, Barinder Sran, Pankaj Jaiswal, Rasikh Salam

DC Team News

The Delhi Daredevils, now rechristened as the Delhi Capitals with the hope of turning things around this IPL, will be skippered by Shreyas Iyer who took over the captaincy from Gautam Gambhir during the previous season. Including Gambhir, the team had released nearly half their squad ahead of the auction which means that they will be coming up with a revamped outfit in this 12th edition. Shikhar Dhawan, who played for the franchise in 2008, has returned to strengthen the top-order batting. Delhi Capitals bought ten players at the auction including Hanuma Vihari, Axar Patel, Sherfane Rutherford and Colin Ingram.

DC IPL Performances

Formerly known as the Delhi Daredevils, they have been the worst performing team in the IPL. Now under the moniker of Delhi Capitals, they will be hoping for a change in fortunes as they look to put an end to their horrendous run. The team has failed to go past the league round in their last six attempts and have finished at the bottom of the table on three of those occasions. In the previous edition, Delhi Capitals could muster just five wins from fourteen matches and finished at the bottom of the pool.

DC Squad

Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant, Prithvi Shaw, Amit Mishra, Avesh Khan, Harshal Patel, Rahul Tewatia, Jayant Yadav, Manjot Kalra, Colin Munro, Chris Morris, Kagiso Rabada, Sandeep Lamichhane, Trent Boult, Shikhar Dhawan, Hanuma Vihari, Axar Patel, Ishant Sharma, Ankush Bains, Nathu Singh, Colin Ingram, Sherfane Rutherford, Keemo Paul, Jalaj Saxena, Bandaru Ayyappa

KXIP Team News

Mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy and England allrounder Sam Curran were the two high-profile purchases for the KXIP at the IPL 2019 auctions. While the former was bought for Rs. 8.40 crore, the latter was picked for Rs. 7.20 crore. In addition to these two big signings, the team has also roped in Australia's Moises Henriques along with some young Indian all-rounders. Prabhsimran Singh was another big buy at Rs. 4.80 crore. Kings XI Punjab released as many as eleven players including Aaron Finch, Yuvraj Singh, Axar Patel and Mohit Sharma and traded Marcus Stoinis for Mandeep Singh in order to beef up their batting.

KXIP IPL Performances

Kings XI Punjab don't have too many happy memories of the tournament, except for 2008 and 2014 when they finished as semi-finalists and runners-up in the respective seasons. They have finished at the bottom of the table twice in the previous four editions. The team blew hot and cold last term. They got off to an excellent start, winning five of their first six matches, but lost their way thereafter to finish seventh at the end of the league stage with six wins and eight defeats. KXIP ended up facing defeat in each of their last five matches.

KXIP Squad

KL Rahul, Chris Gayle, Andrew Tye, Mayank Agarwal, Ankit Rajpoot, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Karun Nair, David Miller, Ravichandran Ashwin, Moises Henriques, Nicholas Pooran, Varun Chakaravarthy, Sam Curran, Mohammad Shami, Sarfaraz Khan, Hardus Viljoen, Arshdeep Singh, Darshan Nalkande, Prabhsimran Singh, Agnivesh Ayachi, Harpreet Brar, Murugan Ashwin

CSK Team News

Before the auctions, Chennai Super Kings released only three players - Mark Wood, Kshitiz Sharma and Kanishk Seth. At the auctions, they bought just two - pace bowler Mohit Sharma for Rs. 5 crore (their most expensive buy) and uncapped batsman RutuRaj Gaikwad for Rs. 20 Lacs. MS Dhoni has been retained as captain of the team along with Faf du Plessis, Suresh Raina and New Zealand's Mitchell Santner who sat out the entire last season due to injury. CSK, however, failed to recruit a left-arm pacer and a back-up option for off-spinner Harbhajan Singh.

CSK Squad

MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Deepak Chahar, KM Asif, Karn Sharma, Dhruv Shorey, Faf du Plessis, M Vijay, Ravindra Jadeja, Sam Billings, Mitchell Santner, David Willey, Dwayne Bravo, Shane Watson, Lungi Ngidi, Imran Tahir, Kedar Jadhav, Ambati Rayudu, Harbhajan Singh, N Jagadeesan, Shardul Thakur, Monu Kumar, Chaitanya Bishnoi, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Mohit Sharma