The group phase of the inaugural season of The Hundred concludes on Wednesday evening and it does so with a dead rubber as the Welsh Fire play host to the London Spirit in a match where all that is at stake is to avoid the embarrassment of finishing bottom of the table.
Both these teams have really struggled throughout the competition and have known their fate for a while now but the winner of this one will avoid the ignominy of propping up the rest of the teams which might be an incentive for both.
Welsh Fire
It looked like being so different for the Welsh Fire when they won their opening two matches of the campaign but then their captain Jonny Bairstow disappeared for England duty and their season went with him. Since then they have lost all five matches that they have played and you would have to be honest and say that they haven’t really been a competitive factor in many of them. They will need a huge improvement to win this match.
It has been the Fire batting which has struggled in this five match losing run. They scored 150 in the first of those matches but haven’t got close to that figure since then and with a bowling attack that has struggled for the majority of the tournament that isn’t a good position to be in. The big problem their bowlers have had is even their home conditions haven’t really been ideal for their bowlers so the Fire have plenty of work to do before next season to become a competitive force.
London Spirit
The London Spirit have also lost five of their seven matches but where they began the competition looking terrible and a bit of a disaster, they have shown signs of life in the last couple of matches. They won one of those and lost the other but it took the innings of the tournament from Laurie Evans to beat them in that match so that was one of the few occasions where a side can probably take something forward from a defeat.
The big problem for the Spirit is that it took them too long to settle on a bowling attack which could deliver everything Eoin Morgan wanted it to. They probably aren’t quite fully there yet but they are getting to that stage which bodes well for a team who will have Glenn Maxwell next season and if England don’t schedule a Test series to clash with the tournament will have Dan Lawrence and Zak Crawley strengthening their batting resources.
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Key Men
There were signs at the Ageas Bowl last time out that Tom Banton was coming good but just when he went to put the foot down he got out. This is the last chance for him to remind people what he can do ahead of some huge T20 cricket to come over the winter.
Eoin Morgan spoke on commentary on Monday night about how he wants to lead from the front a lot more than he has done this season and in a match which has no competitive edge on it the England captain has a great chance to swing hard and remind everyone just how good he is ahead of a busy winter for himself.
Betting
Betting on the away sides hasn’t always been a profitable idea in this competition but I do think it will yield dividends here because the London Spirit look to be a better balanced side than the Welsh Fire and that has shown in the last couple of weeks where the Spirit have won a match and it needed an inspired innings to deny them a second, whereas the Fire have lost their last five and are getting worse rather than better if anything.
I always think captains are massive in this format of the game and indeed the T20 and the Spirit have a huge edge there. I don’t really think we can make too much of the captaincy of Ben Duckett because he has such an inadequate bowling attack to work with due to injuries and call ups and everything else. Morgan has slowly moulded his attack how he wants to and their batsmen are reacting to that nicely as well. Morgan now has an attack that can match up well with the opposition and so I expect the London Spirit to finish their season positively.
Tips
Back London Spirit to beat Welsh Fire for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with William Hill
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