The Big Bash League continues with just the one match on Monday and it is the latest offering from the Blundstone Arena as the Hobart Hurricanes look to get their season back on track when they host the Adelaide Strikers.
After the Brisbane Heat won on New Year’s Day, the Hobart Hurricanes now find themselves bottom of the table while the Adelaide Strikers have dropped down to fourth in the pile so both teams will be eager to win this one.
Hobart Hurricanes
When you consider the quality that the Hobart Hurricanes have in their squad there is no part of them which should be teetering with the bottom of the table. They have played fewer matches than the other teams in the competition but they only have two wins from five games and two of the three defeats they have taken have been very heavy ones by the margins of a T20 game. The latest loss to the Sydney Thunder was the heaviest yet and is the kind of loss which can force change either in mentality or personnel.
The big issue for the Hurricanes is the batting. In three of the five matches they have scored less than 150 and in their last game they put up 166 but it paled into insignificance when they were chasing over 220. They have arguably the most powerful batting unit in the competition so they really need to find some form. They have been inconsistent with the ball as well which is never a good combination.
Adelaide Strikers
The Adelaide Strikers head into this match off the back of a controversial defeat to the Melbourne Stars on New Year’s Eve. That was their third successive defeat after they opened the season with three straight wins so they are in danger of undoing a lot of their hard work from the start of the campaign. A win here would get them back on track and back ahead of the ledger as they hit the halfway point of their season.
In two of the three defeats their bowling has let them down a touch. To be fair, they ran into a Marcus Stoinis storm on New Year’s Eve and there isn’t a huge amount you can do about that but they will need to finish their bowling innings better here because the death batting of the Hurricanes could really get away from them. The positive is that in the main Adelaide have batted well with the exception of their trip to Perth but all visiting sides struggle there.
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Key Players
Ben McDermott is back in the Hobart Hurricanes squad and boy do they need their talisman back and delivering the goods. He is likely to go straight up and open the batting and Hobart could do with him going big.
Henry Thornton is the leading wicket taker in the tournament and if the Adelaide Strikers are to give themselves the best chance of winning this match they could do with their exciting prospect getting stuck in with the new ball.
Betting
This hasn’t been the highest scoring tournament of all time but the last couple of days have produced some higher scoring matches and I think that trend might continue here between two sides who are starting to give up a lot of runs with the ball and who both have no shortage of batting quality and depth and who both come in here off the back of a blitz against them in their latest outing. While there are wickets in these attacks in searching for those wickets they can sometimes be expensive.
The run line for this match is 315.5 which feels a little on the low side to me even allowing for the fact that the only match here so far has been pretty low scoring. That did involve the Melbourne Renegades though and their batting has fallen through the floor. I think both of these teams have ball strikers in their ranks and on what is usually a decent pitch down in Hobart is see no reason why these two can’t combine for more than 315.5 runs.
Tips
Back Over 315.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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