The penultimate round of group matches in The Hundred begins on Thursday evening when the Southern Brave play host to the Trent Rockets in what is a key match in the competition for the visiting side.
Southern Brave might have won the tournament last season but they won’t be around when the knockout stuff starts this term. A win for the Rockets here will ensure they are into the finals for the second season in succession.
Southern Brave
The Southern Brave have only won two of their six matches this season and both of those have come against the Welsh Fire who are continuing to show they are nowhere near the standard required in the competition. The other four matches they have played against proper opposition they have lost the lot and in truth they haven’t really been competitive in any of them. That might be the most disappointing thing for the Brave.
They can be excused a touch because they have had injuries throughout the season, particularly to their bowlers which has left them exposed but there are still enough class players who should be able to have kept them competitive in matches but they just haven’t shown the form required. They are not playing for anything now though so perhaps those players can finally stand up and be counted and find some form for the endeavours to come.
Trent Rockets
The Trent Rockets have had a near perfect season. They have won five of their six matches and were unfortunate to run into a blitz from Moeen Ali and Liam Livingstone in the match they lost to the Birmingham Phoenix. Apart from that though they have been perfect this season and there haven’t been too many matches where they have been troubled either. They have the leading scorer in the competition in Dawid Malan and a top order who have all contributed at one time or another.
The one thing I like about the Rockets is the variety in their bowling attack. Any attack that can’t find room for Marchant de Lange is automatically a good attack but they have class spin in Rashid Khan, good swing with Daniel Sams, a seamer in Sam Cook and some heat from Luke Wood. With a batting unit that technically bats down to nine there isn’t a huge amount of weakness in the Rockets side and it wouldn’t be a surprise if they are competing in the final at Lord’s a week on Saturday.
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Key Players
Paul Stirling was ruthless against the Welsh Fire on his debut for the Southern Brave earlier in the week and if he can get them off to a flier here then it might encourage his fellow batters to show the form they can do.
Rashid Khan has the ability to put the skids on any batting team and we saw that on Saturday evening when he ground the London Spirit to a halt midway through the innings. He can also whack it at the end of the innings if needed.
Betting
You would have to have the Trent Rockets down as the favourites in this match but I have a hunch that with no competitive pressure on them some of the bigger players within the Southern Brave ranks are going to show their full range of ability in one of these last two matches and if it happens to be here you could end up sweating over an odds on shot, which is never really a situation you want to be in. I’ll therefore head to the side markets for a punt in this one.
That comes in the form of the player performance market for James Fuller. He is a Hampshire player playing on his home ground in this match and I think the Ageas Bowl suits him nicely. The straight boundaries are big here so he can use his pace and pitch the ball up without too much fear of going the distance. He can certainly crank it up so I think he’ll be a useful bowler for James Vince in this match. He is also more than handy with the bat in hand and knows conditions here having played here for a few seasons now. Fuller has a wicket in four of his last five matches and has made it into double figures with the bat in two of those. His performance line is 26.5 which he covers with just an average match. I’ll take the over.
Tips
Back J.Fuller’s Performance – Over 26.5pts for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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