The second match to begin in the Big Bash League on Tuesday sees the Sydney Thunder colliding with the Melbourne Stars at the Manuka Oval in Canberra with top spot possibly the reward for the team who comes out on top.
These two sides head into the match in pretty good form overall in this tournament and they both have the chance to put something of a marker down if they can get the better of the other with these two maybe meeting later in the competition.
Sydney Thunder
The Sydney Thunder have played four matches this season and have only lost one of them. They won’t need reminding that the team they lost to were the team they are playing here. That was their first match of the season and they were in a position to win that match but faltered late on with the bat which wasn’t ideal. Since then they have come alive with the willow and gained strength with the ball which makes them a dangerous side to face here.
The Thunder still have more to come as well. Alex Hales has barely scored a run in the last couple of innings and although Usman Khawaja has got a load of starts he hasn’t had that big innings that he is capable of. One area where the Thunder are performing to close to their best capabilities is with the ball and they will need to continue doing that given that they are up against a fearsome batting line up in this match.
Melbourne Stars
It will be interesting to see how the Melbourne Stars go in this match. I say that because defeats like the one they suffered last time out can leave a bit of a scar so this match is as much of a mental test as it is going to be a physical and technical one. They will know they should have knocked off the Sixers last time out but they ran into an innings of his life from Daniel Hughes and that along with a questionable final over condemned them to defeat.
If they have recovered from the shock of losing that match then the ending to it should act as a reminder to them that no match is won until the final ball is bowled and that will be no bad thing if indeed they have learnt from it. The other thing they could use is a few more runs from their top order although really the top order just need to lay the platform for the power that is in the middle order to build a huge score from. It must be said the Stars aren’t blessed with brains in the batting department.
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Team News
The Sydney Thunder have Sam Billings available after he has completed his quarantine period. He is likely to come in for Baxter Holt and keep wicket. Alex Ross is also fit but whether he can displace Oliver Davies remains to be seen.
The Melbourne Stars have recalled Marcus Stoinis and Nic Maddinson to their squad but they will be without Nathan Coulter-Nile who not surprisingly is injured. Nick Larkin is one who is likely to be replaced and if Stoinis can bowl the rest of the side could be unchanged.
Betting
Given that these are two sides who find the boundaries quite readily anyway and both have added batting firepower to their squad since their last matches I’m expecting the boundaries to really flow here. When the two sides met on this ground earlier in the competition there was no Nicholas Pooran. Sam Billings or Olly Davies and all three are likely to play in this contest. On top of that Andre Fletcher only hit two boundaries while Usman Khawaja, Daniel Sams and Ben Cutting hit one boundary between them.
That shows us that there is a lot more to come from these sides in the boundary hitting department and when you consider there were 34 boundaries in that first game between the two when 169 played 147 the chances of there being more than 37.5 boundaries in this match look very good. The Thunder hit 27 boundaries in their last innings on this ground and 25 and 20 prior to that. The Stars smacked 25 off the Sixers on a bigger ground than this so I very much like the over in boundaries here.
Tips
WON – Back Over 37.5 boundaries for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with William Hill
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