The opening weekend of the Big Bash League season brings about the first double header of the new campaign with the first of the two matches over the course of Saturday seeing the Melbourne Stars taking on the Sydney Thunder at the Manuka Oval in Canberra.
The Stars got their campaign off to a winning start against a pretty ordinary Brisbane Heat side on Friday while the Thunder will get their season up and running here and will be looking to kick off with a victory against a fancied runner.
Melbourne Stars
You can never criticise a team for winning in sport and on this case you can’t complain when the Melbourne Stars pick up the four points on offer but there wasn’t a whole lot that was convincing about the victory over the Brisbane Heat and I would wager they will need to show more here. You would imagine that will come naturally anyway as there are still a lot of cricketers in Australia who are shaking off the rust that the pandemic has created.
One area where the Stars will have been very happy was with their bowling effort. They got stuck in early doors and never let the Heat get away from them, although it has to be said the approach Brisbane took with the bat was not a particularly good one. Melbourne would have been more disappointing with their batting effort, and while they got home comfortably enough there would have been a few things that they will hope to brush up on.
Sydney Thunder
There is a lot of optimism around the Sydney Thunder this season and for good reason. They have signed nicely in the off season with the likes of Adam Milne and Sam Billings coming in. The latter isn’t available just yet but the former is and will add to the strength of what was a pretty strong bowling attack to begin with. When you look down this Thunder side there does not appear to be too many weaknesses in it.
The areas where we have seen matches won and lost so far in this tournament are in that four over powerplay and when the two over power surge come along. With that in mind it is probably a good thing that Sydney are incredibly strong in the opening berth and with the new ball and they have players who can take advantage of the power surge with the bat in their hand and who can defend reasonably well when they have the ball in hand.
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Team News
Melbourne Stars are picking from the same squad which they used for the clash with the Brisbane Heat. Nobody performed badly in that match so it would be a surprise if they make any changes especially with Nic Maddinson still away with Australia A.
Sydney Thunder will be without Sam Billings who is in quarantine for this match but they have a full strength squad to choose from aside from that. Usman Khawaja, Adam Milne, Alex Hales and Daniel Sams will form a formidable looking quartet.
Betting
I expect the Melbourne Stars to be challenged a lot more in this match than they were by the Brisbane Heat. I would have expected that anyway because if you read my preview for this tournament I like the overall chances of the Sydney Thunder side whereas I couldn’t be any more downbeat on the Heat’s hopes if I tried, however you have to take the schedule into account here too and that has gone against the Stars.
Some of the Stars players won’t have played a competitive game for the better part of nine months and now they will need to play a second inside around 18 hours. Everyone seems to refuse to take things like that into account and while the actual playing of the matches isn’t an issue, the recovery and preparation for the next one very much is, especially in a pandemic. If everything was even I would say the Thunder would have a live chance here but given that schedule issue I believe their chances are much stronger. It is the Thunder for me in this one.
Tips
Back Sydney Thunder to beat Melbourne Stars for a 3/10 stake at 2.38 with Sky Bet
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