Match 3 preview: Pune (70%) expected to win against Hyderabad (30%)

By Amar Dani On April 04, 2013

With our first 2 predictions being spot on, we hope we can keep up to our name by providing good predictions throughout the tournament. We shall be updating our models to incorporate latest form of players and make our predictions based on the best 11 available for teams.

The upcoming IPL match looks like an uphill battle for Sunrisers Hyderabad (led by Kumar Sangakkara) who make their debut against Pune Warriors India (led by Angelo Mathews). Deccan Chargers was re-christened Sunrisers Hyderabad when the Sun Group overtook the 2009 IPL winners. For this match, our prediction is that Pune has close to 70% chances of winning against Hyderabad who have just 30% chance of winning the encounter.

Hyderabad would definitely miss Shikhar Dhawan who is suffering from the hand injury during his debut test match. JP Duminy would also be missed dearly who would miss out due to injury as well. Our quantitative analysis indicates that their absence caused a win probability loss of almost 20% to Hyderabad. Taking the injuries into account, our model suggests that Ravi Teja might be included into the playing eleven along with Hanuma Vihari who was a member of the India's Under-19 World Cup team last year. On the bowling front, Steyn would lead the attach with Ishant Sharma and backed by the Sri Lankan allrounder Thisara Perera. The spin attack would be spearheaded by experienced Amit Mishra supported by White who might chip in a few overs.

Pune would be led by Mathews in the absence of Michael Clarke who is suffering from a back injury. That is a major setback for the Pune team but the presence of Yuvraj and Mitchell Marsh would more or less take care of that. Our models suggest that Abhishek Nayar and debutant Rasool might be included in the playing eleven. People would be eager to see the in form bowler Kumar in action along with Ashok Dinda who has performed well in earlier versions of IPL. Sri Lankan spinner Ajantha Mendis is expected to spearhead the spin attack of the Pune team. Overall, Pune looks much more balanced in comparison to Hyderabad as suggested by our modeling.

The graph above shows the relative performance index of each player that we calculated. Clearly Pune has an aggregate index larger than Hyderabad and looks like an easy win for Pune. If you hover over the players name, you can see the scores of each player. A higher score implies a higher importance for the player (as you might already have inferred)

We shall be coming up with predictions for each of the 72 matches through the IPL 6 championship and you can also follow the real time win probability on Cricmetric.

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