There are two more matches in the Big Bash League on Saturday, with the action beginning in Melbourne where the league leading Melbourne Stars host the Perth Scorchers in a match of significant early in the day.
The Stars will guarantee a top two finish in the table with a win here, while the Scorchers will put three points between themselves and the play-off spot line should they overcome the odds to win this game.
Melbourne Stars
The Melbourne Stars will head into this match full of confidence, safe in the knowledge that they absolutely battered this opponent last time out. That was one of nine wins they have picked up in their 10 matches to date, and although they haven’t always been convincing, they certainly were at Optus Stadium earlier in the week, and will be hoping to replicate that dominance here. A repeat of that performance will do them nicely.
The battle was won by the Stars bowlers in that reverse fixture, and we shouldn’t be surprised at that because they have been the best bowling team in the competition by some way and if they keep that up it is hard to see them not being the champions. That is not to say they haven’t batted well because they have and on this ground they are pretty daunting to face, as a big crowd gets behind them and they are ideally suited to the conditions.
Perth Scorchers
They won’t need me to tell the Perth Scorchers that their performance in the previous match was dreadful, but some of it can be accounted for by the insane amount of travelling they have had to do in such a short space of time. I hinted that it could catch up with them before that contest and it duly did, and it remains to be seen whether a couple of days rest has been enough to restore an even keel among their squad.
If it has, then we saw going into that previous game that they can deliver some good form. The question mark for them is whether they can go from playing on one of the smallest grounds in the competition with success to the biggest one in it. Their batsmen, who rely on their power and big hits, will need to show a different skillset and their bowlers are probably going to need to adjust as well and that isn’t always easy.
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Team News
The Melbourne Stars have suffered a blow with the news that Haris Rauf has been called up by Pakistan for their upcoming series with Pakistan. Hero of the win over the Scorchers in Perth, Jackson Coleman, misses out with injury. Jonathan Merlo and Nic Maddison come in.
Kurtis Patterson has finally recovered from injury for the Perth Scorchers and he has been included in their 13-man squad for the contest, with Liam Guthrie the man to move out for him. Ashton Turner and Ashton Agar are still both missing.
Betting
The general consensus seems to be that this will be a low scoring game. To be fair you can certainly see the case for that with this ground being a big one and the Scorchers just being skittled for 86 but I’ve eluded to their travel issues being part of the reason for that and I don’t expect that to be the case again. Generally this isn’t a ground where many boundaries are hit but I fancy that could change here with two powerful batting line ups on show.
Both teams have good batting depth and like to utilise their power and there is only one genuine spinner in both sides so there should be enough pace on the ball that if gaps are found boundaries should come. There are a lot of 360 degrees batsmen in this match who generally score in hitting a lot of boundaries and on a perfect day for cricket in Melbourne I’m going to side with over 32.5 boundaries rather than go under as I have done throughout the tournament. A couple of powerplay blitzes and we won’t need too much more for the over to land.
Tips
Back Over 32.5 boundaries for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with William Hill
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