The televised Royal London One Day Cup on Thursday comes from Canterbury as the home side Kent host a powerful Yorkshire side for the right to face either Northamptonshire or Surrey in the semi-final later in the season.
This is last chance saloon in terms of one day silverware for Kent having failed to make it to T20 Finals Day but Yorkshire are at the Edgbaston showpiece on Saturday and will be looking for a second semi-final on the season with a win here.
Kent
Kent made it through to this stage as the runners up to Somerset in the South Group. We’ve seen this young side get stronger and stronger over the last couple of years but this might be their biggest test for a while. Having home advantage is a bonus though.
Kent have batted well in both one day competitions this season and they are going to need to do that here too. All eyes will be on the England Lions duo Sam Billings and Daniel Bell-Drummond and if Kent can be competitive with the ball they could yet progress through to the last four.
Yorkshire
Yorkshire have been a little hit and miss in this tournament and they have lost their last two matches in the group stage although they had qualified quite early on. Since then they have produced a fantastic performance to make it to T20 Finals Day and they will be looking to put in another big performance here.
Their batting has been an issue at times in this tournament although with the cavalry back I don’t expect that to be as much of a problem here. Their bowling attack is so strong with the depth that they have they go into any match knowing they have a chance of bowling any side out.
Team News
Kent will be without David Griffiths and Fabian Cowdrey for this match which isn’t ideal actually because Griffiths is a very good death bowler and that could be significant. Kent also don’t have an overseas player.
Yorkshire have their plethora of England stars back which means that Joe Root, Gary Ballance, Jonny Bairstow and Adil Rashid are all in the squad. Just like Kent, Yorkshire are without an overseas player for this match but nobody can argue with the strength in their squad.
Betting
I’m already on Kent outright in this tournament although it looks like they’ve drawn the short straw here with Yorkshire having all their England players back. That said I’m not ruling Kent out yet. They are a young side but they are a very talented one and they’ll give as good as they get. Given that I’m on Kent outright I’ll leave the match betting alone and head for the side markets.
The market in question is the boundaries where the line looks a little light to me at 57.5. We’ve seen throughout the summer that some belting wickets are prepared at Canterbury and we saw that again on Tuesday in the England u19s match there so we should get a really good batting track here.
Both sides are full of top quality batsmen who love to attack so I’m expecting the boundaries to be peppered. There are some decent bowlers on show but I’m not convinced they’ll get a track that helps them so I’m expecting to see 58 boundaries at least and potentially plenty more.
Royal London One Day Cup -Tips
Back Over 57.5 boundaries for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with William Hill
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