The second part of the double header in The Hundred on Sunday comes from down in Cardiff where the Welsh Fire and the London Spirit play their penultimate match of the competition in do or die circumstances.
The winner of this match keeps control of their own destiny heading into the final set of group matches but the losers will be pretty much eliminated from the competition so there is plenty on the line in this one.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the Sky Cricket and Sky Mix channels with the build-up to it beginning at 5.30pm ahead of the 6pm start time.
Welsh Fire
The Welsh Fire have been a lot more competitive this season but defeat to the Trent Rockets last time out has left their season hanging by a thread. They only have two wins to their name so far so they do at least know that there is no way through for them if they don’t win their final two matches. That will at least clear their minds and allow them to play with complete clarity as they go about keeping their season alive.
The big problem for the Fire heading into these last two games is they have lost their Pakistan seam pair of Shaheen Shah Afridi and Haris Rauf for the remainder of the competition. To be fair, Matt Henry and Lockie Ferguson are decent replacements but they are going to need to hit the ground running. The Welsh Fire batting has been hit or miss throughout the tournament and they could really do with the batting to fire up now.
London Spirit
The London Spirit kept their season alive with a good win over the Northern Superchargers on Friday evening and if they can win here they will move into the top three ahead of a clash with bottom of the pile Birmingham Phoenix to round off the group phase of the competition. That is a good place to be in but they are still going to need to play some decent cricket if they are going to push on and extend their season for at least another match.
The Spirit have been pretty good with the bat in this competition and if they bat well here they will certainly fancy their chances. They haven’t gone as well with the ball but to be fair to them a lot of their matches have been played in damp conditions where the bowlers didn’t really have a chance. This is not going to be one of those occasions so you would imagine that we will see the best of them with the ball which will help.
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Key Players
Jonny Bairstow hasn’t done anything in this competition to date but with an ODI series with New Zealand on the horizon and a World Cup just beyond that both England and the Welsh Fire could do with that changing here.
There are a couple of new bowlers in the Welsh Fire ranks so if Adam Rossington can take advantage of them finding their feet then he could get the London Spirit off to a positive start in this match and set them on the way to victory.
Betting
Adam Rossington is a player I am going to back in this match. He is in good form at the minute and there is no reason why that won’t continue over the course of this encounter. The Welsh Fire have a couple of new bowlers at the top of their innings for Rossington to get after. He has scores of 39, 1, 61 and 53 in the competition so a player performance line of 29.5 immediately looks on the low side to me here.
He might not just score with the bat though. He will keep wicket and has taken catches in three of the five innings he has kept in and on a low, slow and potentially turning Cardiff track it isn’t beyond the realms of possibility that he grabs a catch or a stumping. It is the latter he will have all but covered the total in one hit but I expect him to challenge it with the bat given the form he is in. However he gets them I expect Rossington to get to 30 points.
Tips
Back A.Rossington’s Performance – Over 29.5pts for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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