While the Oval Invincibles are the reigning women’s champions of The Hundred, the men’s team have been another one of those franchises who have disappointed in the opening two seasons of the tournament. When you consider that they are strongly linked to Surrey, expectations at The Oval are always high but as yet the Invincibles have been anything but and need a much more convincing season this time around.
Stats
Last Season: 5th
Captain: Sam Billings
Key Players: Will Jacks & Sunil Narine
Best Odds: 7/1 General
Fixtures
August 2: London Spirit (a)
August 6: Welsh Fire (h)
August 9: Manchester Originals (h)
August 11: Northern Superchargers (a)
August 13: Birmingham Phoenix (a)
August 15: London Spirit (h)
August 19: Southern Brave (a)
August 21: Trent Rockets (h)
Squad
Sam Curran, Sunil Narine (Adam Zampa from August 13), Will Jacks, Jason Roy, Tom Curran, Sam Billings, Saqib Mahmood (replaced by Tom Lawes), Heinrich Klaasen (Jimmy Neesham from August 20), Ross Whiteley, Jordan Cox, Gus Atkinson, Ihsanullah Khan, Danny Briggs, Nathan Sowter, Zak Chappell, Tawanda Muyeye
Preview
The Oval Invincibles will be looking for this season to be the one where it all comes together but when I look at the squad list I’m not overly convinced that is going to be the case. There is no shortage of power in their top order, but in truth there isn’t really a team who doesn’t have power at the top of the order. The big question is how they will go with the ball with four matches at what has been a decent wicket at The Oval as well as away matches at high scoring grounds at Lord’s and Headingley.
The big issue I see for the Invincibles is their better bowlers are in the main all spinners with Sunil Narine, Adam Zampa, Nathan Sowter and Danny Briggs all on their books but the amount of rain there has been in July and is forecast for the early part of August, I’m not convinced they are going to find spin friendly conditions in many places. That leaves the Oval outfit vulnerable but with plenty of match winners with the bat they have a chance.
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Betting
The good thing about the Oval Invincibles is that from a betting point of view we can be pretty sure that Jason Roy and Will Jacks will be the opening pair with potentially San Curran at three ahead of the Kent pair of Sam Billings and Jordan Cox after that so we can have a good look at the top batter market for the Oval outfit and even at 9/4 I like Will Jacks here. He is having a wonderful year. He destroyed attacks in the SA20 earlier in the year and was the fifth top scorer in the T20 Blast recently. Jacks top scored for Oval by 69 runs last season and looks in even better touch this time around. He’ll do for me.
When we assess the bowler market the feeling is that the favourite, Sunil Narine, has to be taken on because he leaves halfway through the competition but picking who to take him on with isn’t easy. The obvious answer would be Sam Curran but he only took 16 wickets in 16 matches for Surrey in the Blast and only picked up four wickets in his last seven outings and went round the park so I don’t know if he is carrying a niggle. Tom Curran has only just started bowling again while Danny Briggs is just back from injury. Gus Atkinson might be the value alternative at around the 5/1 mark but there is no guarantee he starts so I’ll leave this one alone.
Tips
Back W.Jacks Top Oval Invincibles Batter for a 3/10 stake at 3.25 with William Hill
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