The opening quarter final of the Royal London One Day Cup sees the defending champions Durham head to arguably the best one day side in the country right now in Nottinghamshire to battle for a place in the semi-final.
Trent Bridge is a good venue for what would normally be a very good game of cricket although it has to be said the forecast for the match isn’t the best and that might put a dampener on both the spectacle and the betting opportunities.
Nottinghamshire earned a home quarter final by topping the more difficult of the two groups in the first stage of the competition and now they will hope to push on and make it to Lord’s but we’ve seen in the T20 how they can dominate a group stage when the pressure is off and then really struggle when the knockout stages come around.
Durham sneaked into the quarter finals when Northants’ last group match was washed out. The Jets had a superior run rate to the Steelbacks and that was enough to get them through. Consistency wasn’t the strong point in Durham’s campaign but they showed last season that they can perform under knockout pressure.
Nottinghamshire have named a 12 man squad for this match with Dan Christian filling the overseas role. Alex Hales and James Taylor will play before they head off to join up with the England limited overs side but Michael Lumb misses out with a thumb injury.
Durham were hoping to have Ben Stokes available for the match but he hasn’t been named in their squad so those hopes must have been forlorn ones. Mark Wood is another who misses out but John Hastings is still around despite some Australians having left already to prepare for their domestic season.
Both sides had long Championship matches immediately before this match which went the entire four days. Nottinghamshire won and Durham lost but I suspect Durham’s minds were always on this match rather than that one. If I had to choose I’d probably make the case for Durham who have been good on the road this season and who take on a side with a nasty knockout record at home.
That said with the weather around I don’t want to lose the toss and lose the match so instead I’ll take a chance that a significant number of overs are played that a sixes bet can be played out and paid out.
With all the rain that has been around for the last day or two conditions are unlikely to be the best for batting. Durham aren’t the most prolific when it comes to hitting sixes anyway. They’ve only hit 24 of them in seven group matches. They have an attack that can be tricky to get away though and it might get to the stage where Nottinghamshire just want to win rather than entertain with sixes so the 11.5 sixes line looks way too high even for a 50 over match.
It is conditions like these that can lead to top orders making a real mess of things so this might be an occasion to look down the order for a top bat punt. Chris Read will bat low but he can bat and has a 47* in the tournament to his name.
We’d need early wickets but the likes of Hastings, Rushworth and Onions are perfectly capable of getting them. If Read gets significant time at the crease he is a much better batsman than a 33/1 shot. He’s worth a small punt.
Back Under 11.5 sixes for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Coral
Back C.Read Top Nottinghamshire Batsman for a 1/10 stake at 34.00 with Ladbrokes
Blog cricket YTD: -10.17pts
