Champions League Begins with a Bang - Bangalore Royal Challengers vs. Cape Cobras

Champions League Twenty20 Betting Odds

Bangalore Royal Challengers vs. Cape Cobras
Thursday, October 8 th -10am

Bangalore Royal Challengers –165
Cape Cobras +135

So it comes down to this, a global tournament to decide which “domestic” team is the best exponent of the shortest form of cricket – the Champions League Twenty20.

The supposed brainchild of Lalit Modi, the chairman and commissioner of the Indian Premier League and vice president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, the tournament was first mooted back in the late ‘90s but has taken this long for it to come to fruition.

Now, thanks to a bankroll of more than US$6 million, the best teams in the world and their own individual governing bodies have been convinced that they should jam yet another competition into an already overcrowded cricketing calendar.

So far this year there has been the latest IPL tournament, the Twenty20 World Cup and the recently completed Champions Trophy on top of the usual and regular tours undertaken by each country.

Fatigue doesn’t seem to be a bother for those administrators and hence we stare down the barrel of another month-long competition, which starts on Thursday when IPL superstars Bangalore Royal Challengers take on South Africa cricket’s Cape Cobras.

Not surprisingly, IPL 2009 runners-up Bangalore have been installed as favourites in the match that will launch Champions League Twenty20 at Bangalore’s Chinnaswamy Stadium.

A quick scan of both team’s stats shows that the Cape Cobras are a far better outfit than you would give them credit for, however that must be tempered with the fact they are not playing in the IPL and instead are playing domestic cricket in South Africa.

They have won 22 of their 40 T20 matches winning 56% of the matches they have batted first. With a highest total of 4/212 they not surprisingly have a batting heavy line-up and average a score of 150.

Bangalore on the other hand have won 13 of 30 matches in the IPL due mainly to a poor first year in 2008 when they ended up second last in the competition. Averaging 141 with the bat, their bowlers are also somewhat expensive averaging close to eight runs an over.

They also like to chase down targets and prefer batting second winning 47% of the matches they chase while winning just 38.46% of matches in which they bat first.

While the Cape Cobras will be relying on Proteas JP Duminy for leadership with the bat, Bangalore have at their disposal Black Caps’ Ross Taylor, Jacques Kallis, Robin Uthappa, Rahul Dravid, Virat Kohli and Mark Boucher to name but a few.

Their bowling stocks appear to be light on with just Dale Steyn and Praveen Kumar in the side as quicks but the enigmatic Anil Kumble will be called upon to dry up the runs and bamboozle the Cobras batsmen.

The smart money is on Bangalore taking the win.