We remain in London for The Hundred on Monday when the Oval Invincibles take on the Welsh Fire at the Kia Oval in a match which sees both teams looking to bounce back from surprise defeats last time out.
The Invincibles were well beaten by the Northern Superchargers at the weekend while the Fire were doused down by the Manchester Originals so they each have a pretty swift chance to get back on track in this one.
Oval Invincibles
In a way I feel a little sorry for the Oval Invincibles. I say that because they had to open the tournament in the first match where nobody really knew what was happening. They won that match but then saw their second one washed out and then come the third one they got caught a little rusty having not played for 10 days and by the time they finally clicked into gear they were already up against it. You’d expect a much stronger performance from them here.
The concern over the Invincibles is how strong their bowling attack is. Sunil Narine should be good for a solid 20 balls while Saqib Mahmood gets better with every outing but the rest can all be a much of a muchness and at the death they can really go round the park if they are not careful. Although they put up an indifferent batting display last time out, the Invincibles don’t lack for batting depth which is a positive for them.
Welsh Fire
The Welsh Fire had looked invincible themselves up until the last match. The obvious thing to blame was the loss of Jonny Bairstow and to be fair it probably had some impact but I’m not convinced it was the reason they lost the match. They lost because they didn’t bowl particularly well although when you look through their three matches so far, they haven’t really bowled all that well in any of them, they just got fortunate that Qais Ahmad was so good in the first game.
You get the feeling if the Fire are going to continue to deliver the goods in this tournament it will be their batting that does it but you would also imagine that batting second will be important to them. They have an inexperienced captain now in Ben Duckett and he might struggle to contain opposition if they bat first. I’m not going to write the Fire off after one defeat but that bowling is a concern and although Lungi Ngidi might be available here they still need to step up in that department.
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Key Men
The Welsh Fire have the potential to get away from sides quickly if they are not slowed down by early wickets so it might be that Saqib Mahmood is important at the start of the innings for the Oval Invincibles. He is in excellent form right now and if he can get stuck in it will really help.
Glenn Phillips hasn’t fired in this tournament yet but he was in brilliant form in the Vitality Blast recently and you would think it is only a matter of time before he comes alive here. You wonder if they’ll play the extra bowler and shove him up to open but wherever he bats if he gets going the Fire will be in a wonderful position.
Betting
I don’t really want to back either of these sides because I wouldn’t trust either of them at the death. I would imagine this would be a fairly high scoring match but with their run lines and everything bookmakers are already all over that which isn’t ideal. I happened to be at The Oval on Friday for the One Day Cup match and a fresh pitch was being prepared for this game so we can expect the batting to have ideal conditions from which to flourish here, something which hasn’t always been said in the competition to date.
That makes me think that the best bet in the contest is for there to be more than 10.5 sixes. The Oval isn’t the six hitting festival ground that it was 10 years ago but they keep adding to the stands and the boundaries get shaved in slightly as a result of that. The cow corner hits are never particularly big here and neither are the straight hits. When you think we have the likes of Jason Roy, Will Jacks, Sunil Narine, Laurie Evans, Sam Billings, Tom Banton, Glenn Phillips, Ben Duckett and Leus de Ploy among others on show with the bat here I expect the sixes to flow.
Tips
Back Over 10.5 sixes for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with BetVictor
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