Having had a look at the outright market for the new Vitality Blast season as well as the one for the top batsman, it is now time to look at the top bowler offering for the competition ahead of it getting underway on Thursday.
As with the batsmen, there is a lack of overseas and Kolpak bowlers on show in the competition this season so the domestic bowlers will be required to stand up and be counted in conditions that might favour them the deeper into September that we go.
Recent Winners
2019 – Ravi Rampaul (23)
2018 – Pat Brown (31)
2017 – Clint McKay (23)
2016 – Benny Howell (24)
2015 – James Faulkner & Stephen Parry (25)
Market Leaders
Matt Parkinson and Pat Brown were the 1-2 in this statistic in 2018 and they are the two favourites to top the wicket charts this term. Parkinson is coming back from injury at the minute and might well miss the start of the season. Brown definitely will as he is away with England and he has been injured too so there is enough reason to pass them over as with only 10 regular season games each one that is missed will be costly.
There are half a dozen players who come next in the betting at 16/1 and they include the current Bob Willis Trophy leading bowler Simon Harmer who I’ll come on to in a minute. The others at this price are Ravi Rampaul, who isn’t due over until later in the tournament if he makes it at all, Tony Palladino, Benny Howell, Henry Brookes and Marchant de Lange. Of the others Brookes is appealing enough but again the rain and strength of that Central group puts me off taking him.
There are another bunch of players who are 20/1 in the betting. They are Keith Barker who doesn’t play white ball cricket, Hardus Viljoen who isn’t over this summer, Nathan Rimmington, Steven Finn, Tom Helm, Toby Roland-Jones who is out injured, Ben Sanderson, Jeetan Patel who also isn’t here, Morne Morkel and Mason Crane. The only one out of those lot that would appeal is Steven Finn but I hate taking captains in this format, especially those captaining for the first time.
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Profile
Once again we can whittle the field down somewhat by applying some filters. If you consider there are 18 county sides who will each use at least five bowlers we are looking at somewhere upwards of 90 runners in this market which is just too many to have in a shortlist. The quickest way of bringing that number down is picking either seamers or spinners. Recent winners have all been seamers but with grounds being used by more than one team, double headers and the tournament being condensed to squeeze it in, I think we’ll see some tired pitches where the spinners come to the fore.
Another way of bringing the field down, and this is probably more important for the bowlers than the batsmen because the differential is a lot tighter, is to focus on teams that you think will get the extra match of a quarter final and hopefully semi-final and final. That should bring the field down to around 20 bowlers which makes life a lot easier to pick from.
Betting
I’m going to keep it pretty simple here. I think spinners are the ones to be with but rather than going through who will bowl at the biggest grounds and potentially avoiding the weather and things like that I’m going to side with Simon Harmer, the Essex spinner who isn’t just out in front in the Bob Willis Trophy wicket charts but he is comfortably ahead even though he has had two fewer bowling innings than most.
For whatever reason county batsmen just can’t seem to be able to play the South African spinner. It isn’t just in red ball cricket that is the case either. It appears to be an issue in white ball cricket too. Harmer bagged 17 scalps last season in the Blast which was good enough for a tie for ninth. Of those who finished above him, Ravi Rampaul, Harry Gurney, Kyle Abbott, Imran Tahir and Hardus Viljoen won’t be bowling a ball in anger in this competition, or not until late on in the case of Rampaul, while two more – Matt Parkinson and Toby Roland-Jones will miss the start of the tournament with injury. That leaves just Steven Finn ahead of Harmer from last season and he is captaining Middlesex for the first half of this season. Harmer won’t need to do a whole lot more in this campaign than he did the last so at 16/1 he’s my bet for this market.
Tips
Back S.Harmer Top Tournament Bowler (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 17.00 with Bet365 (1/4 1-4)
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