The Birmingham Phoenix were one of the better teams in The Hundred in the first two campaigns of the tournament but they had a poor year last term when some of their big batters failed to deliver the goods so the Edgbaston based outfit will be looking to go much better than they did a year ago. With some exciting new additions to the squad the optimism will be high that this can be the best season yet for the Phoenix.
Stats
Last Season: 6th
Captain: Moeen Ali
Key Players: Liam Livingstone & Sean Abbott
Best Odds: 11/2 Sky Bet
Fixtures
July 23: Oval Invincibles (a)
Jul 27: London Spirit (a)
Jul 31: Trent Rockets (a)
Aug 3: Southern Brave (h)
Aug 6: Northern Superchargers (h)
Aug 10: Welsh Fire (a)
Aug 12: Trent Rockets (h)
Aug 15: Manchester Originals (h)
Squad
Chris Woakes, Tim Southee, Liam Livingstone, Moeen Ali, Ben Duckett, Benny Howell, Adam Milne, Jamie Smith, Louis Kimber, Sean Abbott, Tom Helm, James Fuller, Dan Mousley, Jacob Bethell, Aneurin Donald, Rishi Patel
Preview
Birmingham Phoenix have had the personnel to win this title in the past but haven’t got over the line and you wonder if they are going to be inconvenienced too much by missing two key batters in the first week of the campaign and if the Test match goes the distance or even into the final day then Jamie Smith and Ben Duckett are going to miss three matches while Chris Woakes will miss more than that as the ECB manage his workload. There is batting depth with the Phoenix but it is strained without the big two. Will Smeed being injured doesn’t help either.
The reason that the Phoenix are yet to get their hands on this new trophy has largely been down to their bowling going the distance at the wrong time. Adam Milne has been a mainstay for the Phoenix and Birmingham will hope that he comes in good form but if he doesn’t then the addition of Sean Abbott in place of the underperforming Kane Richardson could be a masterstroke. If the ball swings Tim Southee will be a danger while Hampshire pair Benny Howell and James Fuller could have big roles to play.
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Betting
As I explained in the top batter preview, the fact that Birmingham are without two big batters for the first week of the campaign makes betting on their top batter a little difficult because we don’t know exactly when and where Ben Duckett and Jamie Smith will slip in and who for. We do know that they are going to miss at least a quarter of the regular season though so we can eliminate them from our enquiries. I took Aneurin Donald outright as a bit of a punt in the hope that he goes well and the 9/2 that he tops the Birmingham run charts looks a decent price but I don’t really want to tie too much money up if he is one of the players replaced.
I do think the top bowler market is much more straightforward for the Phoenix though and I have it down as a match between their two overseas stars Adam Milne and Sean Abbott with the latter the preferred pick. Milne has gone very well for the Phoenix in the seasons he has played so far but his best campaign came when he had previously played in the Blast which he hasn’t done this term. Abbott spent the first half of the Blast campaign playing for Surrey and averaged almost two wickets a game in the harder South group. He gets wickets throughout the innings and with the pitches not likely to do too much in the way of turn unless the weather gets incredibly hot I think the Aussie is the call here.
Tips
Back S.Abbott Top Birmingham Phoenix Bowler for a 2/10 stake at 3.00 with Betway
