We are down to the knockout stages of The Hundred and on Saturday we will find out who will meet the Oval Invincibles in the showpiece final on Sunday when the Southern Brave and Birmingham Phoenix face off in the Eliminator at The Oval.
It is a simple situation for these two sides. Win and you go to Lord’s for the final on Sunday and lose and you will be watching the trophy be presented from home so there is plenty on the line for this tasty looking encounter.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the Sky Sports Cricket channel with the build-up to the match beginning at 5.30pm ahead of the 6pm start time.
Southern Brave
The Southern Brave have been in and around the top three for most of the season so they deserve their place in what is effectively a semi-final here but there is a chance that they have the rain to thank for being here in the end because needing to avoid defeat against the Welsh Fire in their last match of the regular season, they were faced with a daunting looking run chase and weren’t making the best fist of it at the time the rain did come down.
We shouldn’t allow that to detract from what has been a decent season for the Brave but there have been the odd concerns, not least that their bowling has gone around the park a couple of times in the way you wouldn’t think that a team stacked with so much talent with the ball should. On one of those occasions the brutal hitting of Kieron Pollard got them out of a hole but they won’t want to get into that situation in what is a do or die clash.
Birmingham Phoenix
The Birmingham Phoenix were always the side to watch out for in terms of coming home with a flourish the way the schedule was. They ended up needing to avoid defeat against the Manchester Originals on Thursday to make it through to this match and despite the rain reducing the game to a 30 ball hit and giggle, they showed their class in all departments to come through without too many issues and now they can really attack this match.
Birmingham are the only side left in the tournament who haven’t lifted this trophy yet so they are not going to be short of motivation to do that over the course of the weekend. The longer this season has gone on the better their bowling has got which is good. You would expect that given one or two came in without too much cricket behind them. They bat deep and have key players in decent form so the Phoenix have everything they need to give this a good crack.
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Key Players
James Vince has been the leading run scorer in the competition to date but he was out early in that cut off run chase against the Welsh Fire. The Southern Brave could do without their skipper failing to get going here it must be said.
Ben Duckett continues to impress with the bat in this competition and five days away from being back in England colours for the upcoming Test series with Sri Lanka, he’ll look to continue his fine form with another solid knock here.
Betting
This should be an interesting Eliminator because both of these sides have played at The Oval this season and both underperformed and got soundly beaten so something is going to have to give in that regard. I’ve backed Southern Brave outright at the start of the tournament so I’ve already got a skin in the game and while I probably would take the Brave as outsiders if I wasn’t already involved but instead I’ll head for a side market punt.
The weather is expected to be glorious in London on Saturday and I suspect the ball might fly a bit here. We know how Birmingham Phoenix are going to play because they haven’t changed all tournament but the Southern Brave are more than capable of fighting fire with fire in that regard so I think the sixes line could be a touch on the low side. The Oval is another ground which has short boundaries for a left hander which will interest Birmingham but they aren’t particularly long for the likes of Kieron Pollard anyway. The line is 9.5 which looks a touch on the low side given how the two like to go about things with the bat.
Tips
Back Over 9.5 sixes for a 3/10 stake at 1.75 with Betway
