The Metro Bank One Day Cup stages another day of action on Friday where we have two matches from each of the two groups taking place alongside all of the other cricket going on in the country as teams look to build up a head of steam early in the competition.
With the Test match getting the TV coverage through the day we are reduced to the live streams offered up by the home county if you want to watch any of the action but they are all of a decent enough quality.
Group A
Three teams get their 50 over campaign underway on Friday with two of them meeting in a day-night match at Taunton in probably the pick of the day as the 2023 Vitality Blast champions Somerset take on the 2022 winners of this competition in Kent. Both teams have a good white ball pedigree so it should be a competitive start to their tournament. The other match comes from the Utilita Bowl where Hampshire begin their quest to go one better than last season when they host a Northamptonshire side who have already played a match and let it slip away from them.
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Group B
The last team to get their 50 over campaign underway in Group B are the Vitality Blast quarter finalists Sussex and they do so on Friday when they head to Sookholme where Nottinghamshire are once again taking matches while Trent Bridge is being used in The Hundred. Nottinghamshire were well beaten by Leicestershire in their opening match and will want a win here. The other match is a day-night one from Grace Road where two teams who won their opening match meet as Leicestershire host Warwickshire.
Betting
I’ll take a couple of bets over the course of the day with the first one coming in the form of Hampshire to beat Northamptonshire. Northamptonshire go into this match needing to bounce back from what was a disappointing defeat to Derbyshire on Wednesday and although there probably is more in them there aren’t going to be many teams who get on top of this three-pronged international bowling attack of Mohammad Abbas, Brad Wheal and Kyle Abbott. The rest of the attack is competent and this Hampshire batting unit isn’t too different from the one which got to the final last season. I expected more from Northamptonshire and while I’m not going to write them off just yet, this Hampshire attack is as strong as they’ve ever put out in this reduced level competition and given that they made the final without an attack this good I have to think they get up and running with a win here.
The other bet that I like comes in the form of the runs at Grace Road where the champions Leicestershire play host to Warwickshire in what I expect to be a high scoring match. The run line for this match is 562.5 and when you consider that both teams have already made 300 in the competition already I’ve got to think that gets covered. Leicestershire bat incredibly deep in white ball cricket. In the first match they would have had Tom Scriven batting at nine with seven First-class 50s to his name while Warwickshire can bat a long way down as well. Leicestershire have two very good overseas batters in their ranks to further strengthen their batting and with no real out and out top drawer bowler in either side because of call ups to The Hundred I expect both teams to be involved in high scoring games throughout this competition and the over can land here.
Tips
Back Hampshire to beat Northamptonshire for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with Bet365
Back Leicestershire vs Warwickshire – Over 562.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
