The Big Bash League continues on Sunday with one match as the Sydney Thunder look to bounce back from that horrendous showing last time out when they make the trip to take on the Melbourne Renegades.
The Renegades know all about heavy beatings but not this season because they delivered one of those in their only match so far this term and will be eyeing up back-to-back victories to open up their campaign.
Melbourne Renegades
When you consider how bad the Melbourne Renegades have been over the last three seasons, there was a lot to like about the way they went about their business in their opening match of the new campaign. They had undergone a fair bit of personnel change between last season and this one and the early signs are that the work they have done on the squad will have the right impact, even though they lost their marquee draft pick in Liam Livingstone to injury ahead of the tournament.
The Renegades came out with a real aggression with the bat which is imperative in this competition with just the four overs of fielding restrictions at the beginning of an innings. They know they’ll finish innings well because they have Andre Russell waiting to do his thing. They were never really put under pressure by the Brisbane Heat when it came to their bowling innings but a couple of early wickets were nicely timed. There was a lot to like about the Renegades.
Sydney Thunder
The Sydney Thunder will head to Melbourne with their defeat to the Adelaide Strikers still firmly in their head but although nobody saw quite such an embarrassing defeat coming, there wasn’t a huge amount to like about them even when they won their opening game against the Melbourne Stars. After doing some good work with the ball in that match they fell over the line and then suffered that abject loss last time out.
It will be interesting to see how they approach this match. The tendency when a team gets rolled over is for them to rein it in a little and ensure they put a competitive score on the board but with Nic Maddinson in good form early in the tournament and the likes of Aaron Finch and Andre Russell capable of blowing up any score, a competitive score might not be enough for the Thunder. The positive for them is their bowlers look to be on point.
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Key Players
Andre Russell had a good game with the bat and the ball in the opening win for the Melbourne Renegades. He clubbed 35 off 28 balls and then took 1/26 from his three overs and with him only here for three more matches he’ll hope to make a similar impression here.
Someone needs to get the Sydney Thunder off to a solid start with the bat and set the tone for the innings after that shambles of a showing last time out. Alex Hales is the best player in the team and they’ll be hoping he shows that here.
Betting
This doesn’t have the feel of a high scoring match about it to me. It is only going to be natural for the Sydney Thunder to bat with a bit of caution to ensure that a repeat of their last match doesn’t happen again and the way the Melbourne Renegades have been put together this season with top quality spin bowling the four powerplay overs there is certainly no guarantee that the Thunder get away from them even if they do bat more positively than I would expect them to do.
The Thunder bowlers are good enough that there is no guarantee that the Renegades go big in their batting innings either even though some of the boundaries at this stadium are coverable. I actually like the two bowling attacks a lot more than I like the batting units of these two sides so that naturally leads me to thinking we’ll get a low scoring game here. The run line is 317.5 and when you consider that Sydney haven’t made 150 in two innings combined the under looks good to me here.
Tips
Back Under 317.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Betway
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