The Hundred continues on Sunday afternoon when the second round of matches in the competition begins with the first game of the season from Cardiff taking place when the Welsh Fire welcome the Oval Invincibles to Sophia Gardens.
Both these teams lost their opening match and although the Southern Brave came from two opening defeats to win the title last term, you sense this is a match neither can afford to lose if they are to push on and win the title.
Welsh Fire
There were positives and negatives from the opening game for the Welsh Fire, although when the positive is that they have got the hardest match of the campaign out of the way you know things didn’t go to plan on the pitch. I don’t think there is any dressing up that the Fire were very ordinary in their loss to the Southern Brave in the tournament opener on Wednesday. There wasn’t any of the three facets of the game that they looked good in.
The Fire were particularly poor with the bat and in the field. They gave it as much of a go as they could with the ball but at no stage did it look like they had enough runs on the board and when you add their fielding effort into the mix it was pretty obvious that the Fire were going to take a heavy beating. They will need to pace their innings a lot better here but they have to up their game in the field as well else any extra batting they do find will be irrelevant anyway.
Oval Invincibles
The Oval Invincibles ended up getting a lot closer to winning their opening match than the Welsh Fire did but for large periods of the game they were no better than their Cardiff opponents. In fact, for the first 170 balls or so Oval were terrible and with the game as good as gone some lusty hitting got them close but it would have been a travesty if they had pulled a win out from the performance that they put in.
Sam Billings acknowledged that after the game so the Oval side know they weren’t good enough. Some of their showing in the first game against the London Spirit was down to rust and some of it was poor form and if they are to get into the mix in this competition then out of form players like Jason Roy and Billings himself need to get up to speed very quickly. They also need a couple of bowlers to come good as well.
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Key Players
David Miller missed the opening match for the Welsh Fire and he was badly missed. Cardiff suits him perfectly with his ability to hit straight down the ground and if the home side are to win this match you would imagine he needs to go big.
Hilton Cartwright was the player who got the party started for Oval last time out but whether he will be suited to conditions in Cardiff remains to be seen. He can offer something with the bat, the ball and in the field though and could be key here.
Betting
The boundaries line for this match is up at 37.5 which feels a little on the high side given how big the square boundaries are on this ground. We know that it is different straight down the ground but teams in the main bowl into the pitch and take those out of the equation. The spinners can still be targeted but we’ll need more than boundaries off spinners to get up to 38 boundaries here. I highlighted a few Oval batters out of form ahead of their opening game on Thursday and we saw that some of the Welsh Fire ones are out of nick too. I think this boundary line might be beyond these two sides.
David Miller is sure to have an impact on the Welsh Fire team. Their top order looked light on runs in the opening game but what I didn’t like was how they were trying fancy shots when they were behind in the scoring. The teams who have delivered in this competition so far have smacked the ball out of the park and that is what I expect Miller to do. We saw Oval go a bit at the end of the innings in their opening match and that is when Miller will be doing his best work. I’ll pay to see how he goes at 17/2.
Tips
Back Under 37.5 boundaries for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with William Hill
Back it here:
Back D.Miller Top Welsh Fire Batter for a 1/10 stake at 9.50 with Betfair
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