PADDY POWER INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE OPENING FIXTURE TIPS

The tricky thing about handicapping a tournament like this for the opening fixtures is that nobody is really giving out tremendously generous odds on the outright results. Paddy Power has gone above and beyond the call of duty by offering up some solid odds and a nice selection of markets for the IPL match betting.

Much like me, the bookmakers see Kevin Pietersen's Bangalore Royal Challengers coming up on top in their match against Shane Warne's Rajasthan Royals. Challengers are listed at 4/5 while Royals sit at evens.

Robin Uthappa, Kevin Pietersen and Jesse Ryder are all considered the favourites as Bangalore's top runscorer, each carrying a price of 7/2. Graeme Smith and Asnodkar are the favourites to perform for Rajasthan at 3/1 and 7/2, respectively.

For the Chennai Super Kings vs Mumbai Indians match-up, there is even less between the two teams if you can believe it. Chennai sits at 4/5 outright while Mumbai is listed at 10/11. Again, hard to extract a lot of value on the outright results, but once the teams have played two or three games I expect things to open up considerably.

Matthew Hayden and Suresh Raina are the favourites to notch the biggest total for Super Kings, each carrying a price of 10/3. Mahendra Singh Dhoni is listed at 9/2. Andrew Flintoff, who hasn't performed with the bat lately is sitting at 7/1 ahead of Abbie Morkel at 8/1.

Jayasuriya and Tendulkar top Mumbai's probable batsmen with 11/4 and 10/3.

RECOMMENDATIONS

I'm going with a double on Bangalore and Chennai @ 4/5 x 4/5.

I'm also backing Kevin Pietersen as top runscorer and Matthew Hayden.