The Big Bash League hits Hobart for the first time this season on Monday when the Hobart Hurricanes play at Launceston when they host the reigning champions Perth Scorchers in a standout clash.
These two teams had very different outings in their first game with the Hurricanes being well beaten by the Melbourne Stars while the Perth Scorchers repeated their win over the Sydney Sixers which they achieved in last year’s final too.
Hobart Hurricanes
The scorecard will tell you that the Hobart Hurricanes were heavily beaten by the Melbourne Stars in their opening game and in essence they were but it was only one innings which undid them and that wouldn’t have happened had Joe Clarke been caught when he offered a chance up on one. He went on to add another 100 to his score and that took the game away from Hobart. That dropped catch was a reflection of their performance. It was untidy and sloppy.
That was a surprise because I think man for man the Hobart Hurricanes match up to anything in this tournament. They can have the excuse that the Melbourne Stars had played a match before them and might have had a competitive edge advantage as a result of that but I think we are right to have expected more from a team that is littered with international cricketers. They will hope to put in a much cleaner performance here in all three departments.
Perth Scorchers
The Perth Scorchers had a tricky opening assignment against a team who naturally wanted revenge for being beaten in the title match last season and it looked like it might be a long day at the office when they slumped to 49-5 but the beauty of the Scorchers is that they never panic when they fall into trouble and used their heads to navigate their way out of trouble, put a score on the board and then let their bowlers go to work and complete the turnaround.
The one thing that Perth can rely on is whatever the conditions that bowling attack will find a way to put the opposition under pressure whether they are bowling first but particularly when they are defending a total. That takes so much pressure off of their batting but although it started a bit sloppily in the previous match, when you look at the players their have in their batting list they are not going to fail all the time.
Special Offer
Sign up for a Boylesports account and bet £10 to get up to £20 in free bets! Perfect offer for this competition! Click the image below for this great offer! New accounts only. 18+ T&Cs apply. Gamble Aware.
Key Players
It was a surprise to a lot of people that the Hobart Hurricanes didn’t use Riley Meredith with the new ball against the Melbourne Stars. They paid the price for that and it will be interesting to see if he gets the new nut here to get stuck into this Scorchers batting.
You would imagine this is going to be a high scoring game so the Perth Scorchers will need someone to come to the party rom within their top order and the man who might be of most use is Josh Inglis. He can bat right through this order so if they can get him into form it would be a big help.
Betting
We only get to see a couple of matches at Launceston each season and while they are not always the highest scoring in the world, one thing that tends to be the case is sixes are hit fairly freely. This isn’t the biggest ground we get to see in the tournament but we saw in Cairns earlier in the competition that when a team takes a game to an outground they want to put on a show for a decent crowd so I’m expecting a decent wicket and plenty of big hits.
I’m amazed to see a sixes line in a match that involves the Hobart Hurricanes being in single figures. This is a team that have big hitters like Ben McDermott, D’Arcy Short, Matthew Wade, Tim David and Asif Ali not to mention someone like Shadab Khan who can hit a clean ball too. There are no shortage of hitters in the Perth ranks either and although the Perth attack doesn’t go around the park they do go for some sixes from time to time because they are so attacking with the ball. I would be surprised if we don’t go into double figures for sixes here.
Tips
Back Over 9.5 sixes for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Coral
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2022
