After the second washout of the competition on Wednesday evening, The Hundred should get back to the action on Thursday when Lord’s hosts the clash between the London Spirit and the Trent Rockets.
This is the second time Lord’s was due to host the competition but the first men’s match was washed out on Sunday so we should get a fresh pitch and with it plenty of excitement and entertaining cricket.
London Spirit
That means the London Spirit have been left to play catch up a little in this competition. They lost their opening match when the Birmingham Phoenix got the better of them and then a washout in the second one means that they are in real need of a win if they are to keep on the tails of the top three. You get the feeling if they are going to find a win here their bowlers are going to have to deliver it because there wasn’t a whole lot to like about their batting in the first game.
The big problem they have from that first game is that the only man who really impressed with the bat, Zak Crawley, has now left for England duty so the Spirit need someone to step up in his absence and also need the rest of their order to come good. When you look at the Spirit squad there is a lot more depth to their bowling than their batting which when the draft was made was probably the way teams were thinking but we’ve already seen you need batting depth to flourish here, or someone is going to need to have a day out.
Trent Rockets
If the Spirit come into this match under pressure that certainly isn’t the case for the Trent Rockets. They have won their first two matches and what they will have liked about those performances is they won in very different ways. They cruised to victory in their opening match and then got home under pressure in their second one. Those sorts of things give a team plenty of confidence moving forward and you sense the Rockets might go from strength to strength from here on in.
The Rockets have a very good bowling attack which never really lets up. It is an attack that can bowl a lot of overs of spin, which the general consensus is that will be important the longer the competition goes on, while they have a couple of underrated seamers too. They have lost Joe Root for the remainder of the competition but Luke Wright is his likely replacement and he isn’t exactly shabby. At this stage the Rockets look like the team to beat.
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Key Men
If the London Spirit are going to win matches then you sense they are going to need to get off to fast starts with the bat. That makes Josh Inglis a hugely important player for them especially here as catching up against the likes of Rashid Khan and Marchant de Lange is no easy task.
Trent Rockets have had a number of match winners already in this competition but all eyes will be on Alex Hales in this match. The story attached to the contest is that he can’t get in the England side despite him being so good. A huge score in front of the England captain will make the calls get louder.
Betting
I think the best bet in this match is for the Trent Rockets to hit the most sixes. I say that because they have only conceded three sixes in two matches and both of their games were on a small Trent Bridge ground. Nobody is going to stand and smack Marchant de Lange back over his head and then there is the likes of Rashid Khan who rarely gets hit away. The other Trent Rockets spinners can be tough to get after as well. There also isn’t a lot of hitting power in this London Spirit batting and if Josh Inglis or Eoin Morgan don’t go big it is hard to see them hitting too many sixes.
You look down this Trent Rockets team and there are no shortage of big hitters. Alex Hales is the cleanest hitter of a ball in the country while the likes of D’Arcy Short, Luke Wright, Luke Gregory and even Rashid Khan are no slouches with the bat. The Trent Rockets can afford to explode with the bat earlier than the Spirit given the extra depth they have so I would be pretty surprised when the sixes are counted if more of them don’t belong to the Rockets.
Tips
Back Trent Rockets Most 6s for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with Betfair
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