Anyone who is still laboring under the misapprehension that cricket is a 'boring sport' should watch the last 3 matches of the IPL.

OK, I know it's an entirely subjective matter but those games have delivered excellent entertainment, the like of which any sports fan would appreciate.

Can we keep the good times rolling as we head into another weekend of double headers?

PBKS v SRH

Punjab were denied their chance to make it 3 wins in a row by the Kolkata weather and on current form and the fact that they had KKR in early trouble before the rain arrived, you'd have backed them to have secured those points.

Here then is another chance for them to put points on the board against a Sunrisers side that is looking far less consistent.

The real battle looks likely to occur in the powerplay where the Kings and Xavier Bartlett in particular have bowled well this season. If they can make early in roads into this strong SRH top order then they'll set themselves up nicely. If not, then we know that 12 overs or so of Head, Abhishek and Ishan Kishan can do a lot of damage.

Arsheep Singh hasn't quite hit his straps yet but he does enjoy playing against this SRH top order. He dismissed Head in the powerplay in both matches these teams played in IPL 2024 while Marco Jansen also accounted for Ishan Kishan the last time he bowled at him in the powerplay.

While on paper, the Sunrisers took their lastest match against LSG to a close finish, you'd have to say that the Super Giants were always fairly comfortable and their inability to win it sooner was as much a failure of their batsmen as it was the success of the SRH bowlers.

Defensively SRH still have issues. LSG picked their targets in their chase, taking 64 runs from the 29 ball bowled by Nitish and Unadkat while working around the other members of the SRH attack.

There isn't really a leader of that Sunrisers attack. Ehsan Malinga has bowled well enough and we know that Harshal Patel is incredibly experienced in the middle and death overs, but otherwise, getting that early impetuous with the ball looks to be a struggle.

The pressure is always on then for the SRH batters to create the necessary scoreboard pressure for their bowling attack to thrive in.

A great example of that would be the last time these 2 sides met! PBKS smoked 245 in their 20 overs before SRH chased it down with an incredible 9 balls to spare thanks to Abhishek Sharma's 141 from 55 balls. How he and the Sunrisers would love for the world's number 1 ranked T20 batter at the end of 2025, to return to that kind of form.

That match took place in Hyderabad where plenty of runs have been scored in recent seasons. The pitches here in New Chandigarh are a little harder to predict but we did see some ferocious hitting and plenty of boundaries when CSK visited last week.

CSK v DC

This game really should be unbeaten Capitals versus crisis mode Super Kings.

Poor David Miller will have replayed those last 2 balls against GT over and over again in his mind during the intervening period.

The best thing for him and his teammates will be to get out on the pitch and look to do all the positive parts of that defeat. If they do that, suspect this match won't come down to the final ball! Afterall, DC were within touching distance of pulling off what would have been a record chase for them in the IPL before they fell at the final hurdle.

Falling at the final hurdle is not a problem that this CSK side is having at the moment. Instead, they've not even got out of the starting blocks yet!

There are very few elements of their game which are working well at the moment. A positive you might take, is that they've scored 200+ in their last 2 outings but on both occassions that's not been nearly enough for their bowling attack to defend.

That attack now faces a DC side who have form batsmen throughout with KL Rahul coming very close to hitting the season's first hundred last time out and, despite the last 2 balls, David Miller who hit some magnificent shots prior to that. The only concern for him and the Capitals will be the injury he sustained to his hand in that game which required him to retire hurt for a period of time.

While we've noted that CSK's batting has improved, it's not been their 2 most experienced top order players in Samson and Gaikwad that have been leading that charge. The Super Kings truly need something from 1 if not both of those men today.

One positive they do have coming into this match is that Dewald Brevis is likely to slot into the number 4 spot for them after recovering from an injury. With Sarfraz Khan, Prashant Veer and Shivam Dube having shown decent form already this season, it does provide some hope for Chennai who are now the only side not to have scored a point this season.

The once impenetrable fortress of the Chepauk has now seen CSK lose their last 6 games here. That in part is due to the Super Kings simply not having as good a side as they have done in campaigns past but it's also a result (in my opinion) of the pitches here being much better for batting of late.

CSK scored 209 here batting first against PBKS who then knocked that off with relative ease and 8 balls to spare. It suggests that the days of CSK getting 160 batting first here then suffocating the life out of the opposition's chase on a slow track are truly over. Big runs and plenty of boundaries will be the order of the day!

IPL Boundary Blackjack Round 3

2 matches in and we've only had a single bust so far in Round 3. Are players getting better at estimating the scores or is it just a result of us having had 2 matches of 50+ boundaries?

It's very tight at the moment in the race for the top 3 spots. Will that change today with the double header? On paper, both games are primed to see plenty of runs scored once again but beware the sucker punch!

Position	Player	Points	Hits	Busts
1	@uwelang	104	2	0
2	@sportsgeek	96	2	0
3	@shitsignals	92	2	0
4	@fullcoverbetting	82	2	0
5	@blockchainfpl	81	2	0
6	@r1c4rd0	78	2	0
7	@talesfrmthecrypt	78	2	0
8	@rajpootg	75	2	0
9	@hatdogsensei	74	2	0
10	@onemanonewrite	73	2	0
11	@imfarhad	70	2	0
12	@bitandi	61	2	0
13	@blanchy	60	2	0
14	@wildlifelover	60	2	0
15	@tortangkahoy	51	2	0
16	@shebe	29	1	0
17	@tsnaks	0	0	0
18	@doombot75	0	0	0
19	@valentin86	0	0	1