Two sides who are not used to making Lord’s finals in recent times meet in the opening semi-final of the Royal London One Day Cup on Sunday when Worcestershire host Kent at New Road with a spot at HQ on the line.
Worcestershire made it into this semi-final by coming through on top of the North Group while Kent have already been away from home and won one knockout match this season and will be looking to back that up here.
Worcestershire
The North Group was so tight that Worcestershire ended up winning it but they were only a couple of balls away from missing out on the knockout stages in their final match. They held their nerve when it mattered and that might serve them well here. They will hope it does. The one concern is they are missing their star man from that victory.
If you look through the eight matches Worcestershire have played this season there is one common theme – they have all been high scoring and you get the feeling if they are going to make it through here they will need to score big once again. Their attack is full of youth and while it is talented it lacks a strike bowler.
Kent
You could say it has been an up and down campaign for Kent so far. They looked like they were securing home advantage in the quarter finals only to get walloped at Essex in their final group match but they overcame that disappointment to go and hand out a similar sized beating to Nottinghamshire on Thursday afternoon.
That should set them up nicely here and unlike their opponents in this match they have won high scoring contests and they have restricted sides to lesser totals. In Matt Henry they have the strike bowler that Worcestershire lack and this talented Spitfires batting line up are capable of doing big things as we saw on Thursday.
Team News
Worcestershire will have to do without Moeen Ali for this semi-final as he was not released by England after playing on Saturday. Joe Leach is also missing for this match so Callum Ferguson will skipper the side for the first time.
Kent are also without their captain as Sam Billings’ inclusion at the expense of Eoin Morgan for England on Saturday means he is unavailable here. Adam Rouse will come back in for him while Joe Denly will resume the captaincy.
[the_ad_group id=”3624″]
Betting
I like Worcestershire and really admire the way they go about their business but this semi-final comes at a bad time. No Moeen Ali was bad enough but no Joe Leach either is not good. It has also been almost a couple of weeks since they played one day cricket whereas Kent played on Thursday and it was noticeable both home semi-finalists last year lost. I anticipate the same will happen here. Kent look incredibly strong with the bat and they have the stronger attack. They’re the pick here.
I’ve tried to look at ways that this won’t be a high scoring match and I’ve not been able to find one. Worcestershire will play the extra batsman in place of Joe Leach to make their batting line up a long one while Kent always bat deep. The boundaries line for this contest is at 63.5 which sounds very high but actually when you consider the last two one day matches here had 90 and 75 you could argue it is low. Kent have just smashed a decent Nottinghamshire attack all over Trent Bridge so they could really take to this Worcestershire one but there’s enough talent in the Rapids batting to pepper the ropes. I’ll take the over.
I’ll also have a go at Ben Cox to be the top Worcestershire batsman. It is because of his 80 at Edgbaston that Worcestershire are in this semi-final and while it wasn’t enough to top score that night Moeen Ali isn’t here for this match. Only Joe Clarke and Callum Ferguson have more runs than Cox in this competition for Worcester this season and Clarke has had an extra innings and Ferguson two monster knocks. Cox has three 50s in the competition and another here could snaffle top scoring honours.
Tips
WON – Back Kent to beat Worcestershire for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Ladbrokes
Back them here:
Back Over 63.5 boundaries for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with William Hill
Back it here:
WON – Back B.Cox Top Worcestershire Batsman for a 1/10 stake at 13.00 with Skybet
Back him here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2018
