Warwickshire and Somerset made it through to the semi-finals of the Royal London One Day Cup on Wednesday and on Thursday we will find out who will join them when the second set of quarter finals will be played.
The game which isn’t on the TV on Thursday is the one between Northamptonshire and Surrey at Wantage Road. Northamptonshire have been playing some wonderful one day cricket this season and have T20 Finals Day to look forward to at the weekend but they’ll want to win this as well. Surrey bombed out of the T20 so in terms of winning a trophy this is their last chance this season.
Northamptonshire
It is a measure of how well Northamptonshire did in the group stage that they won the North Group and when you think Warwickshire have already qualified from that it shows the potential Northants have at their disposal. There is a touch of the sublime or the ridiculous about this side but nobody can question their hunger or their fight.
When they get it right they have a very long batting line up which as we saw right at the beginning of the competition is campaign of some massive scores and they also have a solid bowling attack which doesn’t have a lot of weaknesses and which bowl in their own conditions very strongly indeed.
Surrey
Talking of hit and miss there is Surrey. When they get it right they get it very right as their group stage net run rate of +0.992 proves. When you think they won four and lost three of their matches that highlights just how dominant their wins were.
Generally those big wins come when Jason Roy fires at the top of the innings, or one of the top three anyway. If they lose a couple of wickets early that is when they struggle because they are a genuine top batsman light but they like to accommodate so many bowling options so that is the risk they take.
Team News
Northamptonshire have named a full strength squad for this match which means Richard Levi is fit to open the batting. Rory Kleinveldt does the overseas duty in this competition and he has had an excellent tournament.
Surrey have swapped overseas players again. Aaron Finch’s stint is over and Kumar Sangakkara has returned. Ravi Rampaul is also back and in the squad while Sam Curran will also play despite picking up his A-level results earlier in the day.
Betting
Writing Surrey off isn’t the easiest thing to do with the multitude of stars they keep on bringing in but whenever I back them I want to make sure I’m getting a decent price and they’re not that here. In fact I think it is the home side where the value lays.
Northamptonshire are playing their own conditions really well at the minute. We’ve seen that in 20 overs and in 50 overs and I like the make up of their batting line up. They can go hard at the top because they know how much is to come and if they get into problems they can pace it out a bit because going hard again at the end.
Once Surrey lose Jason Roy they can’t really do that because their all-rounders come in as early as number six and that isn’t ideal and I don’t think they have enough of an edge with the ball to justify being odds on here.
We saw what damage this Northamptonshire side can do to this Surrey attack in the T20 final a few years ago and I think with the confidence they are performing with right now they are the side to beat.
Royal London One Day Cup – Tips
Back Northamptonshire to beat Surrey for a 4/10 stake at 2.10 with Unibet
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