The Road to Riches Weekend of 6th-7th June

Coming up this weekend

• Horse Racing, Over the flat at Chepstow, Doncaster, Epsom, Lingfield and Musselburgh and over the jumps at Hexham and Worcester.
• Football, the 2026 World Cup Group stages begin next week
• Formula One, the Monaco Grand Prix in Barcelona
• Cricket, the first England/New Zealand Test at Lords continues
• Golf, the Canadian Open on the USPGA Tour.
• Tennis, ATP Libema and Stuttgart Opens

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Royal Ascot (Full Package) 16th - 20th June 2026

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Gallagher PREM Rugby Exeter v Saracens 3.15pm Saturday

The final round of the regular season this weekend with one of four play-off spots unresolved and the two teams in contention, Exeter in 4^th and Saracens in 5^th play each other in what should be a barn-stormer between two teams who dislike each other, a legacy of their close competition half a decade ago and Saracens relegation for salary cap irregularities.

Exeter won the then Premiership in 2020 and finished 2^nd in 2021 before falling to the bottom half of the table in subsequent seasons with finishes of 7^th, 7^th,7^th and 9^th in the last four years

This year has seen a renaissance, borne partly of excellent recruitment (Ikitau and Hooper from Australia notably, Zambonin from Italy too) and partly a more expansive playing style whereas previously they relied on forward strength and the close-quarters game. England winger Manny Feyi-Waboso was unplayable last week as the cutting edge of that more exciting approach.

Last weekend Exeter became first team to win at Leicester since March 2025 with a 35-26 win. Now two points behind Leicester in 3^rd place and with Leicester travelling to Bath this weekend Exeter have a good shot at 3^rd place for the play-offs and avoiding Northampton who have secured top spot. This is Saracens coach Mark McCall’s last regular season game after 17 years and 15 years since Saracens’ first title. After their relegation to the Championship in 2021 they rebounded to win the Premiership in 2022 before finishing 3^rd,4^th and 6^th in the last three years.

This season saw a poor run during the mid-season but they are ending the year strongly, currently on a five-game winning run. A later win over Harlequins at home last weekend mean they go into this game three points behind Exeter in fifth place, certainly needing to go to Exeter and win, probably denying Exeter a bonus point and scoring one of their won too to make the post-season.

In the midst of a very gradual rebuild (Saracens can still field Itoje, George, Earl, calling on Farrell off the bench) Saracens have introduced young talent into the team over the last 18 months notably winger Noah Caluori and scrum-half Charlie Bracken.

I expect Exeter to win this game at home and they began the weekpriced as 1.5-point underdogs (Evens outright, 8/11 Saracens) I thought those prices were the wrong way round, and indeed we now see Exeter -1.5 and 8/11 outright.

15 points Exeter to beat Saracens -1.5 points at 10/11 generally

Stay of execution

Wales will continue to have four professional rugby teams for at least the next two seasons after a bid by Ospreys’ owners to buy Cardiff from the Welsh Rugby Union fell through in April.

Cardiff will remain under WRU ownership and Ospreys will continue with plans to play at the St Helen’s cricket ground in Swansea, after a collapse in the deal between Y11 Sport & Media and the WRU.

Ospreys are now expected to sign the 2025 Professional Rugby Agreement, a deal between the WRU and the four teams over distribution of finances, which they and Scarlets refused to do last year amid fears that Cardiff would be receiving preferential treatment at the expense of the other three teams.

If Y11 had purchased Cardiff it might have provided a convenient solution to the WRU’s problem of needing to lose a team, as has been its stated aim since last autumn. That proposal has been met with fierce opposition, but the WRU insists it will, by June, still confirm a strategy for reducing the four regional teams to three.

it is no coincidence that this statement was released only a couple of days before Cardiff and Ospreys met in the United Rugby Championship at the Arms Park, with Ospreys clearly appearing a lot more confident of their future than the WRU’s published words. “This now secures the Ospreys’ future into the 2030s,” said a statement from Swansea council.

At least now the WRU will invest the £28m it has earmarked for improvement of its pathways and academies over the next five years, which is a crucial development, given that the production line of world-class players has dried up since the disbanding of a national academy in 2015.

The Road to Riches Weekend of 30th-31st May

Coming up this weekend

• Horse Racing, Over the jumps at Beverley, Catterick, Chester, Haydock and Lingfield and over the jumps at Stratford-on-Avon.
• Cricket, the IPL final and the first England v New Zealand test match next week at Lords
• Golf, the Memorial Tournament on the USPGA Tour and the KLM Open on the DP World Tour.
• Tennis, the French Open continues

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IPL Qualifier 2 Friday 3pm, Chandigarh

Gujarat Titans v Rajasthan Royals

Effectively the semi-final of this year’s IPL, the Qualifier 2 game on Friday sees the loser of Qualifier 1 between 1^st and 2^nd in the league table (the Titans) play the winner of Eliminator between 3^rd and 4th (the Royals) to play RCB in Sunday’s final.

In that former game Gujarat suffered a heavy loss to RCB as the defending Champions hit the highest team total in an IPL play-off game (254-5) to make their second final in a row. The day after Rajasthan followed up with 243-8 to continue this extremely high scoring tournament.

This match features the two top run scorers in the 2026 IPL. For Gujarat Sai Sudharsan is a technically correct top order batsman, not a big hitter as such but 29 sixes and 652 runs in 15 innings represents a third strong IPL tournament in a row opening alongside Shubman Gill with Jos Buttler in at 3. He is 9/4 favourite to be Gujarat top batsman in this match.

For the Rajasthan Royals we have a different matter entirely. 15-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has scored 680 runs and no less than 65 sixes in his 15 innings from just 280 balls. 65 sixes has broken Chris Gayle's record for the most sixes in an IPL season, 59, set in 2012. The talent is amazing, no doubt will be selected by India in shorter formats soon, and could be a staple of all their sides for 20 years plus if he continues developing at this pace. 

On Wednesday he came within one shot of beating Gayle's fastest IPL record (30 balls) only to be out for 97 off 29 balls. Opening the batting he has pulverised every attack he has faced especially in powerplays, and this season has set an IPL record of 490 of his runs in overs 1-6 beating David Warner’s 467 runs from 2016.

Sooryavanshi is available in a couple of places at 3/1 in the Rajasthan top batsman market, 5/2 is reasonable and more attainable.

10 points Vaibhav Sooryavanshi Top Rajasthan Royals batsman at 3/1 SkyBet, Paddy Power, 5/2 Betfred and Ladbrokes/Coral, 12/5 William Hill, 21/10 Bet365

Hundreds of Prospects

The 100-balls-per-innings format and abolition of six-ball overs were the most controversial elements of the Hundred when it was launched by the ECB four years ago and seem likely to change in due course. With four of the new investment groups already owners of Indian Premier League franchises, and another two involving Indian businessmen, there is a clear majority in favour of switching to Twenty20, the globally recognised short format.

The Hundred’s main broadcaster, Sky Sports, expressed reservations about moving to T20 when the idea was first floated two years ago and its contract runs until 2028, but the power of the new money may be enough to bring it around. The BBC would definitely prefer the shorter format as matches are easier to fit into their evening schedules, but the corporation is not contributing much to the £35m-a-year joint deal with Sky, so will have less influence.

Intriguingly, the name of the competition is unlikely to change even if the 100-ball format is dropped, as the ECB has spent more than £100 million marketing it in a bid to bring in a new younger audience, which has been largely successful.

All of the £520m-plus windfall handed over to the 18 first-class counties should ensure their financial health for a generation. The grassroots game received a £50m investment. Having been tied into ECB commercial contracts since the Hundred began in 2021, the franchises are now free to do their own deals, and given the ­contacts and expertise of many of the new investors, income levels are set to soar.

The so-called “tech titans” who have bought into London Spirit, for example, have secured a lucrative new kit deal with Nike that will begin this season, while Sun TV and Reliance Industries (part of the Oval Invincibles consortium and own Indian TV monolith JioStar) are already progressing new commercial deals.

In the short term at least most of the extra revenue will be spent on increasing the salary cap to attract better players in the hope of establishing the Hundred as the second-biggest short-form tournament after the IPL. The aspiration is to treble pay within the next few years. Recruiting Indian players would be a genuine gamechanger, but the Board of Control for Cricket in India is likely to continue blocking them from overseas competitions.

The investors secured a veto on expanding the competition to 10 teams, which has been mooted by the ECB, so while new teams in the North East and South West will not be added imminently the identities of some of the existing franchises differ from this season.

New names include the Manchester Super Giants with the Oval team rebranded as MI London, named after the Mumbai Indians, whose owners Reliance Industries Limited bought a 49% stake in the team.

The optics of an injured Ben Stokes pulling out of the Oval Test last year after bowling himself into the ground in a five-match series with India being crammed into 44 days to keep August free for the Hundred were awkward for the ECB, which has already acknowledged this error. With few England players and certainly no bowlers likely to take part in the Hundred this year the Test schedule has been changed and England will play two Tests against Pakistan during the competition.

The Road to Riches Weekend of 23rd-24th May

Coming Up this weekend

• Horse Racing, Over the jumps at Goodwood, Haydock, Salisbury, Windsor and York and over the jumps at Bangor or Dee and Cartmel
• Premier League, Football League Play-Off Finals weekend
• Rugby Union, the European Champions Cup Final in Bilbao
• Formula One, the Canadian Grand Prix
• Cricket, the IPL continues and the T20 Blast starts this weekend.
• Golf, the Charles Schwab Challenge on the USPGA Tour and the Austrian Open on the DP World Tour.
• Tennis, the French Open

Royal Ascot (Full Package) 16th - 20th June 2026

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The Road to Riches Weekend of 16th-17th May

Coming up this weekend

• Horse Racing, Over the jumps at Doncaster, Newbury, Newmarket and Thirsk and over the jumps at Bangor-on-Dee and Uttoxeter.
• Premier League, the FA Cup Final
• Cricket, the IPL continues, and the T20 Blast starts next Friday
• Golf, the Byron Nelson Championship on the USPGA Tour and the Soudal Open on the DP World Tour.
• Tennis, ATP Hamburg and Geneva Opens

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IPL: Punjab Kings v RCB 11am Sunday Dharamsala

As we enter the last week of group stage games in the 2026 IPL Sunday begins with a repeat of last year’s final, this time played in the far north and the foothills of the Himalayas at Dharamsala.

As I write these are two sides in the top four, RCB 1st (a Kohli century led them to victory on Wednesday to take them to the top again) and Kings 4^th after five defeats in a row ( they will fall out of the top four if Chennai Super Kings beat Lucknow Super Giants on Friday), both with plenty to play for in large part due to the structure of the play-offs:

1^st in the league table play 2^nd with the winner going straight through to the final.

Then 3^rd plays 4^th, the winner playing the loser of the 1^st/2^nd game.

Therefore we can see the 1^st/2^nd place winner plays a game less in the play-offs.

By Indian standards, Dharamsala can be a spicy pitch with mixed weather and an emphasis on player technique. Punjab Kings were 140-7 against good medium pace bowling that nibbled around against Mumbai on Thursday to give an indication of this.

For the Punjab Kings Arya and Prabhsimran open, with Iyer and Australian Connolly batting alternating between number 3 and 4.

Arja returned to form on Monday with a 24-ball 50 including six sixes after a mixed tournament up until that point. He now has 366 runs in 11 innings at a huge 216 strike rate off just 168 balls including a massive 32 sixes. A boom-bust option for player betting markets.

Fellow opener Prabhsimran (549 IPL runs last year) top scored in Thursday’s match with 57 and now has 439 in 11 innings at a strike rate of 170.

Iyer, with 50 Indian T20I appearances has 396 runs in his 11 innings at a strike rate of 164.

Connolly (22-year-old left hander from Perth, who made his international debut in all three formats by early 2025) meanwhile is the Kings’ top scorer so far this season with 436 runs at a strike rate of 162. His 11 innings this season include these scores: 72*, 87, 107, 30,36, and 38 with three team top scorer scores.

Odds in the Punjab Kings top scorer market are:

Iyer 3/1

Prabhsimran 3/1

Arya 100/30

Connolly 9/2

This is obviously a competitive heat, but Connolly at 4/1+ looks interesting value as team top scorer as fourth favourite at a venue where the new ball may see him in relatively early.

10 points Cooper Connolly top Punjab Kings run scorer at 9/2 SkyBet, Paddy Power, 4/1 BetVictor, 7/2 Bet365, Betfred, Ladbrokes/Coral

Embrace the chaos

The 2026 Six Nations set a tournament high for tries (111 at an average of 7.4 per game). France scored 33 or more points in each of their five fixtures. The previous best was 25, by England’s class of 2003 and by France last year.

There were 12 instances of a team scoring 30 or more points in a match, helped by France’s 50-40 loss to Scotland and their 48-46 victory over England the following weekend. For context, there were only two instances of a team scoring 30 points in the 2011 Six Nations.

France retained the title despite conceding 19 tries more than anyone else except sixth-placed Wales (26). In 2011England conceded just five tries on their way to the Championship.

Various factors combined to see this explosion of tries and scoring. Five of the six teams endured historically poor tournaments from a defensive standpoint. In terms of points conceded, England’s campaign was their worst of all 27 Six Nations competitions. France’s was their 26th, Wales’s their 25th, Ireland’s their 24th and Scotland’s their 22nd.

The 2024-5 law change with a crackdown on escort runners when defending high kicks has yielded more vigorous aerial contests, with chasers granted “access” to the defensive catcher. This has made things more “chaotic” and “transition-based”, therefore tipping the balance in favour of the attack rather than the structure defences prefer. 

There were only 33 penalties kicked at goal in 2026, down from 53 in 2025 and 63 in 2024. Tries from quick taps were up to 14 from only four in last year’s Six Nations and the lineout remains a fruitful platform, with 53 of the 111 tries in 2026 beginning from that set piece. Officials have also become stricter on how mauls are set up, penalising obstruction when they see it, but sides can launch a range of lineout plays including dummy drives.

Also we are in an era of fast-developing individual skills and better and better player conditioning that helps when games open up in the second half. French winger Louis Bielle-Biarrey is a generational player and is a reason for the try spike in itself. He converts chances others cannot. Six of his record nine tries in this year’s Six Nations, including three of the four he scored against England featured a kick on the scoring phase.

Add to him the likes of Finn Russell, Jalibert and others and we have a perfect storm of individual skills, law changes and attacking approaches currently being ahead of defensive patterns that has led to hugely attractive and high-scoring rugby.

In due course of course defense coaches will catch up, and especially in Winter Northern Hemisphere weather there will still be tight and tense matches characterised by tough tackling and turnovers, but it is difficult to see the attacking ethos and chaotic styles of play disappearing from the game completely. That should be here to stay.

The Road to Riches Weekend of 8th-9th May

Coming up this weekend

• Horse Racing, Over the jumps at Ascot, Haydock, Leicester, Lingfield and Nottingham and over the jumps at Hexham and Warwick.
• Premier League, fixtures include Liverpool v Chelsea
• Cricket, the IPL continues
• Golf, the USPGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club
• Tennis, ATP Italian Open continues

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Royal Ascot (Full Package) 16th - 20th June 2026

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IPL: RCB v Mumbai Indians Sunday 3pm

Sunday’s second IPL match sees the Mumbai Indians (9^th of 10 teams in the current league table with three wins and seven losses so far) visit third-placed RCB, defending IPL Champions (six wins and four losses)

Through 50 IPL matches in 2026 so far there have been 13 scores of 220 or more, six of those above 240. Four of those 13 scores have been compiled against an underperforming Mumbai bowling attack.

For a variety of reasons (true pitches, small boundaries, bat technology, player conditioning for range hitting, hitting technique) T20 scoring has advanced, leading the way for the T20 global game.

As you can see from the table above this has been particularly evident in the Powerplay overs (1-6 at the start of the innings) where run rates have exploded in recent times, surpassing 10 runs per over on average for the first time in this season’s IPL.

Mumbai have allowed 745 runs in 10 bowling powerplays at 12.4 runs per powerplay, the worst in the competition this season.

RCB began the tournament with Phil Salt opening alongside Virat Kohli ahead of Paddikal and Patidar at 3 and 4 with Tim David the finisher. Salt has missed the last four games with a finger injury, and remains out, and Jacob Bethell has come in to open alongside Kohli.

Kohli/Bethell/Paddikal/Patidar is a high variance batting line-up, perfectly capable of hitting 250-3 whilst throwing in the odd 155 all out along the way.

Kohli has (unsurprisingly) been the star performer at the top of the order with 379 runs in 10 innings (231 balls) at an average of 47 at a 165 strike-rate and three 50s.

Paddikal has 316 runs in 9 innings off 175 balls at an average of 40, strike rate of 180.

Patidar 318 runs in 9 innings off just 159 balls at an average of 40 and a huge strike rate of 200.

Bethell has started his belated IPL campaign slowly with scores of 4,5,14 and 20 in his four innings so far.

For Mumbai’s bowling Jasprit Bumrah only has 3 wickets in ten games, Santner is out injured and Trent Boult 2 wickets in 5 games.

With those three marquee players struggling spinner Ghazanfar has led the way with 12 wickets at 23 in 8 matches, frequently bowling in the powerplay. Medium pacers Ashwani Kumar and Thakur have 12 wickets in 8 combined games whilst latterly South African fast-medium bowler Corbin Bosch has played 2 matches.

With the strength of this four matching-up against Mumbai’s powerplay bowling I looked for an opportunity in the RCB Top batsman market.

Kohli 2/1

Patidar 3/1

Paddikal 4/1

Bethell 11/2

Iyer 11/2

David 7/1

As to be expected Kohli is favourite and little value. Batting 3 and 4, Paddikal and Patidar are both alternatives, especially with Bethell opening in poor form and one/both likely to be batting during the powerplay.

With similar records, the better value appears to be Paddikal at 4/1 batting above Patidar.

10 points Devdutt Paddikal Top RCB run scorer at 9/2 Bet365, PaddyPower, 4/1 Ladbrokes/Coral, StarSports, 19/5 William Hill.

Thousands for Hundreds

The Hundred's inaugural player auction has taken place and the squads for the eight teams are now finalised.

For the first five editions of the competition, players were allocated to teams via a draft system with a set of salary tiers. Following substantial private investment in The Hundred, players not already signed or retained now have their team and pay set by an auction.

Squads will be made up of between 16 to 18 players, while there is a salary cap limit along with a salary collar, a minimum amount teams must spend.

The salary pot in the men's competition for 2026 has risen by 45% to £2.05m per side, and the fund for women's teams has increased by 100% to £880,000.

The auction created some of the highest paid sportswomen in the UK, with all-rounder Danielle Gibson, pace bowler Issy Wong and 18-year-old spinner Tilly Corteen-Coleman received deals in excess of £100,000.

In the men's auction, 21-year-old James Coles earned £390,000, while batter Jordan Cox claimed £300,000. There were also big deals for Joe Root and Adil Rashid.

The Hundred begins on July 21^st running until August 16^th. The teams will play a total of 64 matches in the group stage (32 men's, 32 women's). All matches will be held on the same day at the same grounds.

Each team will play four matches at home and four away, including one match against every other side in the competition and a bonus match against their nearest regional rivals. After the league stage, the top three teams will progress to the knockout stage to decide the champions. The second- and third-place teams will face each other in the eliminator at The Oval in London. The winner of the eliminator then met the league-topping team in the final at Lord's.