The top two meet in The Hundred on Saturday evening when the Trent Rockets look to follow up their win over the Oval Invincibles earlier in the week when they welcome the London Spirit to Trent Bridge.
Between them these two teams have played eight matches in the tournament and they have only lost one of them so this looks to be a match between two of the best sides in the competition this season and could be the chance for both to lay a marker down in terms of a title challenge.
Trent Rockets
The Trent Rockets are one of those sides who are always likely to be competitive in their matches but if certain players have a night out then they become close to impossible to beat. We saw that in their last match against the Oval Invincibles when Alex Hales was at his brutal best. He is one player in world cricket who can completely destroy and attack and give his own bowlers a lot more to play with than they might otherwise have.
He wasn’t alone on Wednesday and we also saw on Monday that Daniel Sams can destroy an attack so if they can all come off together they are capable pf putting up the sort scores which will have opposition teams under pressure. If there is a concern for the Rockets they do have to hide a fifth bowler from time to time but they get Rashid Khan back for this one so that will make up for any weakness they have in a fifth bowler.
London Spirit
It is quite remarkable how the London Spirit have gone from being useless last season to being the best team in the league this time around. We all know about the issues which dogged them last season and there is no disputing that but usually a team needs a consolidation campaign after a terrible one to rebuild and them get to where they want to be. Having won their opening four matches the Spirit have skipped the transition stage and gone straight to the pushing for the title one.
The Spirit have largely won matches off the strength of their bowling attack. In Eoin Morgan they probably have the best captain in the tournament but he’s only as good as the bowlers he has at his disposal and the ones he has are very good. They get wickets up front and hold their nerve at the death, the latter being something that not all teams do. London are going to need to rejig their batting because Glenn Maxwell has left them now but Ben McDermott and Josh Inglis are solid options.
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Key Players
If Alex Hales fires like he can then he can take any game away from anyone. His England career was cut short by Eoin Morgan so while he might not admit it publicly I’m sure he’ll be motivated to make sure that he fires in this one.
Jordan Thompson seems to be getting a lot of the important action for the London Spirit. He bowls in the powerplay and at the death and is often sent up the order to give it a good biff. If he goes well London Spirit should go well too.
Betting
I expect to see plenty of sixes in this match. Trent Bridge is a ground which lends itself to hitting a lot of sixes and these two are packed with players to do it from Alex Hales, Dawid Malan, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Lewis Gregory and Daniel Sams for the Trent Rockets to Adam Rossington, Ben McDermott, Eoin Morgan, Dan Lawrence and Kieron Pollard for the London Spirit. Everywhere you look down these two sides there are big hitters of the cricket ball.
We know Trent Bridge is a high scoring ground and that the boundary is chopped in to the corner by the pavilion since that new stand went up. To be honest none of the boundaries here are going to trouble the players on show in this match. We saw Trent Rockets hit seven sixes at Edgbaston the other night when they were six down after 50 odd balls so it isn’t like we even need the top orders to fire here. If they do we’ll sail past a 12.5 line but we should get there regardless.
Tips
Back Over 12.5 sixes for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with BetVictor
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