Cricket World TV Insights TATA IPL 2025, Match 37 and 38: PBKS vs RCB and MI vs CSK – In-Form Players, Expert Picks and Predictions April 20

Welcome to the daily Cricket World TV Insights Show, featuring guest presenters with analysis on In-Form Players, Venue Stats and Match Predictions

Another Super Sunday Double-Header awaits…. First up, Punjab Kings vs Royal Challengers Bengaluru and then – ‘El Clasico’ Mumbai Indians vs Chennai Super Kings.

Watch the video and then read the Insights, as we have also teamed up with industry leading experts to bring you their take on the best picks and tips for the upcoming matches

IPL 2025 – Insights Match 37 – Punjab Kings vs Royal Challengers Bengaluru

Punjab Kings (PBKS) will lock horns with Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in Match 37 of the 2025 Indian Premier League (IPL) in Mullanpur on Sunday afternoon. This would be the return fixture between the two units – PBKS restricted RCB to just 95 in a rain-reduced 14-overs a side contest at the Chinnaswamy on Friday before overcoming the total with five wickets in hand. With five wins from seven matches, PBKS are at number two on the table while RCB are at number four with four wins from as many encounters.

We look at the rivalry between the two franchises, the players to watch out for and the match-ups, the numbers which stand out in the different phases of play and who is likely to come out triumphant in the high-octane encounter

Head to Head
MATCHES – 34
PBKS WON – 18
RCB WON – 16


Since 2020:
PBKS WON – 6
RCB WON – 4


Probable Playing XIIs (including Impact Player)

RCB: 1 Virat Kohli, 2 Phil Salt, 3 Rajat Patidar, 4 Liam Livingstone, 5 Jitesh Sharma, 6 Tim David, 7 Krunal Pandya, 8 Manoj Bhandage, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Josh Hazlewood, 11 Yash Dayal, 12 Suyash Sharma

PBKS: 1 Priyansh Arya, 2 Prabhsimran Singh, 3 Shreyas Iyer, 4 Josh Inglis, 5 Nehal Wadhera, 6 Shashank Singh, 7 Marcus Stoinis, 8 Harpreet Brar, 9 Marco Jansen, 10 Xavier Bartlett, 11 Arshdeep Singh, 12 Yuzvendra Chahal



Players To Watch Out For

Virat Kohli (RCB)
Virat Kohli is the leading run-getter in IPL history and the only batter in the 8K Club in the tournament. He is the leading run-getter for RCB this season with 249 runs in seven innings at a strike rate of 141.5. Kohli has hit three fifties so far with his highest impact performance coming against Royals when he registered an unbeaten 62 off 45 balls to take his side to a thumping nine-wicket win in Jaipur. Kohli has significantly improved his play against spin and has scored 135 runs off just 95 balls against the slower bowlers at a scoring rate of 142.1 this season.


Rajat Patidar (RCB)
Rajat Patidar has led from the front and hammered 209 runs in six innings at a strike rate of 157.1. Patidar is the enforcer in the middle order and has a scoring rate of 174.1 in the middle overs (7-16) since IPL 2023. He is a brilliant player of spin and has a strike rate of 172.7 against the slower bowlers in the IPL.


Priyansh Arya (PBKS)
Priyansh Arya has taken IPL 2025 by storm, smashing the fourth-fastest hundred in IPL history – 103 off 42 deliveries against Chennai Super Kings. He is a ferocious hitter at the top of the order and has a strike rate of 208.2 in the powerplay this season. Arya has a scoring rate of 176.9 in all T20 cricket.


Shreyas Iyer (PBKS)
Shreyas Iyer has led Punjab Kings from the front and scored 257 runs in seven innings at a strike rate of 194.7 this season. He has been magnificent against spin, scoring at a rate of 186.8 against the slower bowlers. However, where Iyer has shown remarkable improvement is in his game against the faster bowlers – he has clobbered 158 runs off just 79 balls against pace at a sensational strike rate of 200 in this edition.
 

Venue Stats – Mullanpur
- The average score batting first at the venue in the IPL is 172.
- The average score chasing at the venue is 161.
- The spinners have enjoyed bowling at Mullanpur and have a strike rate of 17.5 and economy of 7.3 at the venue.
- Batting first is an advantage at Mullanpur with the team setting the target winning 5 of the 8 games at the venue.




Powerplay & Death Over Stats

- Priyansh Arya has a strike rate of 208.2 in the powerplay in IPL 2025.
- Shreyas Iyer has a strike rate of 200 in the middle overs in IPL 2025.
- Nehal Wadhera has scored tough runs under pressure and yet has a strike rate of 152.3 in the middle overs in IPL 2025.
- Virat Kohli has a strike rate of 146.8 in the powerplay this season.
- Rajat Patidar has a strike rate of 161.5 in the middle overs this season.
- Tim David has a strike rate of 203.2 in the death overs since IPL 2024.
- Josh Hazlewood has an economy rate of 5.75 in the powerplay in IPL 2025.

MATCH-UPS

- Virat Kohli vs Arshdeep Singh in IPL
Innings – 8
Balls – 44
Runs – 80
Strike Rate – 181.8
Dismissals – 2


- Rajat Patidar vs Yuzvendra Chahal in IPL
Innings – 3
Balls – 21
Runs – 35
Strike Rate – 166.67
Dismissals – 1


- Phil Salt vs Marco Jansen in T20s
Innings – 5
Balls – 28
Runs – 60
Strike Rate – 214.3
Dismissals – 1


- Shreyas Iyer vs Josh Hazlewood in T20s
Innings – 4
Balls – 16
Runs – 5
Strike Rate – 31.25
Dismissals – 3

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Match Predictions

• Toss Prediction

Royal Challengers Bengaluru

• Who will score most runs

Shreyas Iyer (PBKS)
Virat Kohli (RCB)

• Who will take most wickets

Arshdeep Singh (PBKS)
Josh Hazlewood (RCB)

• Match Prediction

Royal Challengers Bengaluru to win

Our Top Betting Picks*

• Glenn Maxwell- Top Match Batter at 34.00, Paddy Power/Betfair- 0.5pts
• Arshdeep Singh- Top Punjab Wicket Taker at 4.0, Boylesports- 1pt
• Yes- Wicket in First Match Over at 4.00, Bet365- 1pt
• Josh Hazlewood- Top RCB Wicket Taker at 3.80, Paddy Power/Betfair- 1pt

Pitch Report

Mullanpur tends to have a bit in it for the fast bowlers and with the way Punjab go about their business- blasting from ball 1- predicting their scores is a quick route to madness.  They chased 260 last year and defended 111 this season- they’re an extremely volatile lot.  A couple of games ago in Mohali Priyansh Arya lit up the IPL with a 39-ball ton as Punjab racked up 219/6.  Last time though, they were shot out (or shot themselves out) for 111 and then, miraculously, defended it.  If the deck is as spicy as it was on Tuesday, another low-scoring thriller is on the cards. 

Maxwell’s Mecurial, but he’s not 33s…

Glenn Maxwell is one of the most gifted cricketers the white ball game has ever seen.  He’s capable of everything from the sublime to the ridiculous and he’s having a terrible season with the blade so far this IPL and was dropped in the last game.  He could easily not play here, in which case it’s money back.  But if he does, he’ll have a point to prove.  A fired-up Maxwell can do anything.  But rather than back his overs for runs or performance, knowing he could easily get cleaned up reverse sweeping his first ball, we’d rather throw a dart at Maxwell for Top Match Batter at 34.00 (Paddy Power/Betfair) because if he is the good Glenn, we’ll reap the rewards

Singh can put RCB in Arsh-deep water

Punjab haven’t actually taken many wickets in the IPL this season. Lockie is injured, Yash Thakur got dropped after getting 1 in 2 games, Jansen’s been a little off the boil, Chahal is very hit & miss and Bartlett is finding the IPL to be a long way from the BBL.  Arshdeep though is a consistent performer and leads the attack very well, providing a threat with the new ball and at the death.  We love being on death bowlers to get the most wickets as they often get the “free” wickets in the slog overs at the end.  Arshdeep won top Punjab bowler in each of the first 2 games before having a quiet spell.  He looked to have the number of Salt in particular the other day and looks a bit over-priced at 4.0 for Top Punjab Bowler (Boylesports).

Early Pole Please

Arya and Prabhsimran appear to be tailing off in terms of form and, as mentioned, Salt doesn’t look at all comfortable against Arshdeep early.  For that reason we quite fancy the early wicket again.  Bet365 go 4.00 first over wicket and with 3 of the 4 openers really chancing their arms early, it looks a solid bet.

Class is permanent, but Josh’s form’s pretty good too

Hazlewood is clearly RCB’s best bowler.  Best bowler doesn’t always equal top wicket taker but considering Bangalore’s other bowlers, he really should be pretty decent favourite to get the most poles.  He has 12 already this season at a pretty miserly 8.17 per over and Punjab just couldn’t handle him on Friday, where he picked up 3/14 off 3 overs.  Bhuv doesn’t get many wickets, Krunal just tries to bowl dry, Yash Dayal isn’t a lock to bowl 4, Suyash has talent but has 2 wickets in 6 games- it all points to a bet on the big Aussie.  So let’s do that, as Paddy Power/Betfair go 3.80 Hazlewood top RCB Bowler.

IPL 2025 – Insights Match 38 – Mumbai Indians vs Chennai Super Kings

It has not been the best of starts for the two powerhouses this year – while CSK is languishing at the bottom of the table with five defeats from seven matches, hosts MI have fared just marginally better with four defeats from as many encounters. However, they seem to have gained some sort of momentum with morale-boosting wins in their last two encounters.

Probable XIIs:

MI: Rickelton, Rohit, Jacks, S Yadav, Tilak, Hardik, Dhir, Santner, D Chahar, Boult, Bumrah, K Sharma

CSK: Rasheed, Ravindra, Tripathi, Jadeja, Dube, Shankar, Dhoni, Overton, Kamboj, Noor, Khaleel, Pathirana

Venue : Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai

Pitch Report

Normally you’d just say there’s plenty of runs on offer at the Wankhede and if you keep wickets in hand you can gun it, etc. etc.  But the pitch here on Thursday was remarkably different.  SRH were 53/0 after 7 overs.  Usually, if Travishek have faced 42 balls they’ve scored 100, not 53.  Until renowned death overs pressure release valve Deepak Chahar came back and served up a load of rubbish, SRH had scored 2 boundaries in 56 balls, which is unprecedented.  Mumbai made light enough work of the chase, but nobody scored more than 40 in the match so it’s hard to be confidently hammering overs on any runs lines.

Are Bet365 Trip-ping?

If Chennai had everyone fit, Tripathi probably wouldn’t be in the side.  His highest score in his 5 innings is 23, with 3 single-figure scores.  He can’t be too high on confidence as he’s already been dropped once this season but had to come back in after Gaikwad was ruled out.  It’s quite likely he’ll have to face Bumrah early in his innings as he comes in first drop and we really don’t see him lasting many balls against Jasprit the Great.  Bet365 have Tripathi’s line at 24.5, which is much too high.  We’re a bit late to the party on this one as they actually opened up at 28.5, which bodes extremely well for future betting this tournament. 

Going in Again on Tilak

We’ve spoken about Tilak before in this column.  He didn’t quite have a chance to win last time as SRH didn’t give Mumbai enough for Tilak to chase (nor could they catch to get any of the top 4 out early enough, but that’s another story) but he looked in perfectly good touch again, seeing them over the line with 21 not out.  In the previous two games he scored 50s and top-batted in both.  The MI batting order is quite fluid and Tilak isn’t locked in at 5, he could easily be back at 4 again.  Either way, he shouldn’t have been pushed out to 6.5 for Top MI Batsman (Skybet) in this one- it’s too big, so we’re going in again.

SKY’s the Limit

Everyone knows how good Suryakumar Yadav is.  He’s not quite caught fire yet in this IPL but still lies 4^th in the race for the Orange Cap with 265 runs in 7 innings at- for a him- a pretty pedestrian SR of 151.  It’s only a matter of time before someone of SKY’s class catches fire though, and it could easily be against a below-par Chennai side back at the Wankhede.  SKY has 8 50s at the Wankhede and two unbeaten tons in just 35 IPL innings.  Another big one here and he’ll be in the running for Man of the Match- Skybet go 13.00 which is much too big for the best batsman in the team who are strong favourites to win the match.

Chennai Hate Going Long

Chennai have hit 35 sixes in 7 matches this season, and Gaikwad is out for the rest of the season.  With Shankar, Jadeja etc. chewing up 30-odd balls for every 6 they hit we’re looking to get against them in the sixes market- particularly with Bumrah back and firing for Mumbai- we aren’t expecting many sixes from his 24 balls.  Chennai have lost the “team most sixes” market 6 times out of those 7 matches too.  Mumbai have cleared the rope 56 times with sixes all the way down- even Deepak Chahar chipped in with a couple from number 9 in his one innings this season.  We think Mumbai should be a fair bit shorter than Skybet’s 1.80 Mumbai Most Sixes, so we’re on.

Our Top Betting Picks*

• Match Odds- MI 1.63 v CSK 2.28
• Rahul Tripathi- Under 24.5 Runs at 1.83, Bet365- 1.5pts
• Tilak Varma- Top Mumbai Batsman at 6.50, Skybet- 1pt
• Suryakumar Yadav- Man of the Match at 13.00, Skybet- 1pt
• Mumbai- Team Most Sixes at 1.80, Skybet- 2pts

*The predictions and picks are formulated from the odds and information sourced from top brand gaming and stats experts – the win prediction widget is live and will fluctuate with the market odds and live in play.....remember, when the fun stops… STOP

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