The two best teams in the Big Bash League both this season and in its history will meet in the final of the competition on Saturday when the Sydney Cricket Ground plays host to the clash between the Sydney Sixers and the Perth Scorchers.
The Sixers head into the match knowing that a win here will see them successfully the crown. The Scorchers will be looking to get their title back so we are set for a cracking contest at a venue which is worthy of staging such a clash.
Sydney Sixers
The Sydney Sixers have been able to watch on for a week while the remaining sides have battled it out to meet them in this showpiece occasion. After a pretty strenuous campaign the ability to put their feet up for a week and prepare properly for this final has to be considered as a huge advantage and it will be interesting to see if they can convert that into another success in this final. They showed last year that they don’t shirk on the big occasion.
If that doesn’t give the Sixers confidence then the fact that they overwhelmed the Scorchers in their only other match in the postseason might well do. Conditions were in their favour on that night but now they are at home at the Sydney Cricket Ground which even though they haven’t had the chance to play at this season, they will know the conditions ever so well. They will be looking to repeat the performance they produced in the Qualifier last week.
Perth Scorchers
The Perth Scorchers will have been gutted not to win the Qualifier last week, especially in the way that they lost out with conditions being completely against them. With that in mind, they deserve a whole lot of credit here as they bounced back well to see off the Brisbane Heat in the Challenger to finally seal their place in another final. Weak sides will have crumbled and lost out to the Heat, but even though the Scorchers had to make a change to their personnel, they delivered a very strong performance.
The Scorchers will feel that on a level playing field they can be very competitive in this match. Their batting has rarely let them down at any stage in the tournament and their attack is usually bang on it. It is also an attack where if someone goes the distance someone else stands up and is counted. A lot of this Scorchers side were in the teams that have previously won this tournament so they have that experience to count on.
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Team News
The Sydney Sixers are predictably picking from the same squad which beat the Perth Scorchers in the Qualifier last week which means that Jake Ball could once again miss out on the starting XI and will need to hope he is an X-Factor.
The official word is that Jason Roy will have to prove his fitness ahead of the match in order to play in the final but with less than 48 hours between the Challenger and this match if he wasn’t fit for that he isn’t likely to be fit here. That could see the Scorchers go in unchanged.
Betting
I’m actually a little bit surprised that the Sydney Sixers are the outsiders for this match with home advantage and the better preparation that they have had for the contest in terms of the fact they have had a week to get ready for it whereas the Perth Scorchers only really knew they were in play late on Thursday. That doesn’t mean I’m ruling the Scorchers out though and given that we don’t know how the Sydney Cricket Ground pitch and conditions will play I’ll head for a side market.
That comes in the form of the boundaries where at 38.5 the line is fairly high but I still fancy this to be covered. These are two of the bigger hitting teams for boundaries and with no cricket here since the third Test between Australia and India last month, the wicket should be true and for a showpiece event like this it should be full of runs as well. India thought about attempting to chase down a monster score on the fifth day of that Test match so there was nothing wrong with the pitch then. They usually bring the boundaries in for the T20s here so I think over the course of this final we will see more than 38.5 boundaries regardless of who wins it.
Tips
WON – Back Over 38.5 boundaries for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with William Hill
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