Darren Gough cricket blog: Ladbrokes ambassador reveals his IPL predictions

Ladbrokes ambassador Darren Gough, in his latest cricket blog, previews the IPL and gives his predictions for the 'best tournament in the world’.

The IPL is so special because it’s got everything. Most importantly, it's got high-quality cricket. It brings the best cricketers from around the world together to play in the same teams, which also makes it so competitive.

And alongside that, it brings through so many young Indian talents. You can only look at the way India have performed over the last five, six, seven years to see how much of an influence the IPL has on their national team. Players keep coming through and coming through and coming through, and they’re so good that they could probably pick three teams that could play in a World Cup and still compete.

It has Bollywood, it has rich business people from all across India who want to be involved, which brings drama to the action and turns people's lives immediately for the better financially, whether it be experienced overseas cricketers looking for that dream auction bid or young Indian talents.

If you look at Rajasthan Royals this year, they've signed a 13-year-old, Vaibhav Suryavanshi, which is amazing. I think he went for more than £100,000 or something like that as well.

Cricket in India is a religion, and you only have to look at the millions and millions who watch it – not globally, just within India. We're talking the biggest viewing figures of all. It's absolutely massive.

The stadiums are packed wherever you go. It brings firework, music and cheerleading, and every player wants to be part of the IPL.

It's the benchmark for every other tournament, whether it be the Big Bash, the Hundred, the CPL or the PSL, it's just the benchmark.

I think that every international – well, every county player within England, not just international – wants to play in the best tournament in the world, and that is the IPL.

This year, there were going to be 11 English players before Harry Brook pulled out to have some rest time, which I totally understand because he's an old-format cricketer for England who’s played in just about every game, so he must be near blowing out and in need of a good break.

Brydon Carse is injured. Ben Stokes didn't go in because of, obviously, the injuries he's picked up. You’ve got Phil Salt, Liam Livingstone and Jacob Bethell at Bangalore, Sam Curran and Jamie Overton with Chennai Super Kings. Mumbai Indians have Will Jacks and Reece Topley.

Jos Buttler's gone to the Gujarat Titans after so many years at Rajasthan Royals. That will be interesting to see how he goes because he's part of the family at Rajasthan.

And then Rajasthan themselves got Jofra Archer, who's making a comeback. It will be interesting to see if he gets through the whole tournament.

So I’m very much looking forward to seeing the English players in the IPL, but I'm sad that there aren’t a few other players going to be in there.

There are some good English players who haven’t got the opportunity this year, and I'm sure they'll be wanting to impress in other leagues around the world to get back into the IPL.

Who’s going to win this year’s IPL? I wish I knew!

There are some unbelievable players in this tournament.When you look through the list of international stars and Indian superstars who are in it, it's very hard to pick.

Now, before I put my name on a team, I want to chat about the Mumbai Indians. They came bottom last year. Remarkable really. Just four wins in 14.

They're going to miss Hardik Pandya for the first game, he's suspended. It could be a troubled season for Jasprit Bumrah with the injuries he's picked up and the workload he's had for India over the past 12 months. It'll be interesting. He's going to miss the start, and he might miss games as they go along. But saying that, they're going to get Pandya back after one game. They'll probably get Bumrah back after three or four games.

They've got Rohit Sharma, they've got Suryakumar Yadav who's a fantastic player, Will Jacks, Ryan Rickelton from South Africa, who I think is an underrated player, Mitchell Santner from New Zealand, bowling his left-arm spin, and Trent Boult, who's retired internationally now, but he still plays a big part in the IPL.

But the team I'm going to go with is Sunrisers Hyderabad.

You've got Travis Head at the top, with Abhishek Sharma, who hit that 37-ball hundred against England. He's going to be unreal.

Ishan Kishan, Nitesh Kumar Reddy and Heinrich Klassen with the bat. Then they've got Mohammed Shami again, an impressive cricketer who always does well in the major tournaments. Can he do it now in the IPL with Sunrisers? Pat Cummins and Adam Zampa, who seems to take wickets whenever he plays, especially in the shortened format.

So I'm going to go for Sunrisers Hyderabad, closely followed by the Mumbai Indians.

It's difficult to say whether I have an affinity for an IPL side because when the IPL first started, I had an affection for Rajasthan Royals for a couple of reasons. The fairytale really. Shane Warne was the captain-coach. They didn't have the strongest team on paper, but they went on to win the first tournament, and they've always had a strong English connection within that side.

That's kind of disappeared of late, and Jofra Archer seems to be the one English player they've got at this moment in time. So if I were to look at this year's teams, there would be a couple.

I like Delhi for a couple of reasons. I met the owners in Dubai over a couple of days when I was in my previous job with Yorkshire, so I built up a relationship there, and then Kevin Pietersen going as a mentor – for those who don't know, I was best man to him and Jess when they got married.

So me and Kevin are pretty close, and he's now a mentor for Delhi, so I'll be keeping a close eye on how Delhi go.

And the other one would be Royal Challengers Bangalore, another team that seemed to keep underachieving with the quite outstanding players they have had over the years. They’ve been the glory side as far as bringing in talent, whether it be AB de Villiers, Glenn Maxwell, Chris Gayle.

I mean, they’ve had some unbelievable players, and this year they've got three English players: Phil Salt, Liam Livingstone and Jacob Bethel. Andy Flower, an ex-England coach and a team-mate of mine from Essex, is the coach.

They've got Virat Kohli, Tim David, alongside Romario Shepherd, Josh Hazlewood from Australia and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who I think is a fantastic death bowler.

When it comes to the top wicket-taker in the 2025 IPL, I think you could go purely for death bowlers – they're going to pick up wickets.

But I'm going to go for spinners, and the two I think it will be are Varun Chakaravarthy and Yuzvendra Chahal from the Punjab Kings.

Chakaravarthy is getting better and better and plays for Kolkata Knight Riders, who won it last year, and he's been outstanding for India.

I think one of those two is going to finish top wicket-taker.

There’s a great battle in store for leading run-scorer. There are a couple of overseas players I think might be special.

Jack Fraser-McGurk of Delhi smashed a hundred in a warm-up game, and I've had it on good authority that he's looking in good touch. The other one is Rachin Ravindra, the New Zealand cricketer. He's a very, very strong player and does well whenever he plays in India or Pakistan. I think he's a fantastic talent. Travis Head rounds out the three overseas I think could be special in the run-scoring department.

As far as Indian cricketers, look no further than Shubman Gill who's going to be playing for Gujarat Titans. There's also Yashasvi Jaiswal, who's playing for Rajasthan Royals, and obviously Abhishek Sharma, who's playing for Sunrisers Hyderabad.

If I had to put my name on to one of them, I'm going to go with Shubman Gill.

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