As a sort of early Christmas present there is a double header of Big Bash League action on Christmas Eve and it all begins at the Blundstone Arena where the Hobart Hurricanes go up against the Melbourne Stars to get the day underway.
Hobart were pretty convincing winners of their opening match of the campaign against Brisbane while the Stars were turned over by the Sydney Thunder in a rain affected match so they will be hoping for better luck in Tasmania.
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Hobart Hurricanes
You have to say the Hobart Hurricanes looked a mighty good side in their opening match of the season against the Brisbane Heat. That comes hot on the heels of making it to the final last year so they are a pretty hot franchise at the moment. They return home for the first time since making it to the last showdown last term and will be looking to put on a show.
The one thing we saw in that first game is that they are full of power with the bat with all of their top five capable of finding the boundary and then they have a good set of bowlers at the death which suggests that in tight matches they are likely to come out on top more often than they are to fail. That is never a bad thing in this format of the game.
Melbourne Stars
It is difficult to know how to assess the Melbourne Stars from their first match and it might actually be that we will find out what they are made of here. I say that because the rain heavily hampered their match with the Sydney Thunder although the one thing that you would say is that they conceded quite a few runs and that needs to change if they are going to get back among the elite.
On paper at least, Melbourne Stars have a decent looking side but they are going to need to transfer that into performances on the pitches. The one concern I always have with this franchise is that too many of them bat for themselves rather than the team. They got away with doing that when they had to slog from the off against the Thunder but that might not be the way forward here.
Team News
Tymal Mills has been ruled out of the competition through injury for the Hobart Hurricanes but as yet they have not named a replacement so with Tim Paine in Melbourne with Australia the home side are likely to be unchanged.
Melbourne Stars remain without Peter Handscomb so they too could go in with an unchanged line up unless they want to make a switch in their bowling attack to try and get some control with the ball.
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Betting
Hobart Hurricanes showed plenty of power with the bat in their opening match and based on the way that Melbourne Stars conceded runs the longer their bowling effort went on I’m seeing no reason why the Hurricanes are not going to put up a significant score in this game.
On the flip side of that there is some insane power and a little bit of depth in the Stars batting line up and if they can get through the new ball unscathed there will be chances for them to open their arms so I quite like the idea of over 34.5 boundaries in this match. These boundaries are nothing like the biggest in the world and in a day game conditions should be conducive to seeing the ball fly to all parts. I’ll take the over.
Tips
Back Over 34.5 boundaries for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with William Hill
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