The second round of matches in The Hundred concludes at Headingley on Tuesday evening when the Northern Superchargers take on the inaugural winners of the tournament Southern Brave in an exciting looking match.
The Superchargers will look to bounce back from the mauling they suffered at the hands of the Trent Rockets in their opening game. Southern Brave will be looking to pick up where they left off having thrashed the London Spirit in their only match so far.
Where to watch
The match will once again be shown on the Sky Sports Main Event, Sky Sports Cricket and Sky Sports Mix channels with the build-up on all three beginning at 6pm ahead of the first ball at 6.35pm.
Northern Superchargers
I think it is fair to say that the Northern Superchargers were always going to be a work in progress this season with people either jetting in on the eve of their opening match or arriving after it but I don’t think anyone saw the level of their ordinary display in their first game coming along. Sometimes in defeat you can take some positives away from it but other than the fact they have players coming back to the side there was nothing good on show in that first game.
Their bowling was carted to all parts and at no stage in the innings could they really say that they had any control over the situation and while Headingley is a fast scoring ground the score that they had to chase was always going to be an imposing one especially for a team missing a couple of key batters. There should be some natural improvement in the Superchargers in this match but there will need to be plenty of it if they are to turn their form around.
Southern Brave
The Southern Brave always looked like they were going to be a strong team heading into this competition and they showed exactly why that is the case in their opening match which they dominated from start to finish. Much like their opposition here, the Brave were down a few key players who are only going to make them stronger when they arrive and get up to speed so to have won that first game as emphatically as they did was encouraging.
The brave victory was set up by their bowling attack and when you consider that Akeal Hosein and potentially Kieron Pollard are coming over to strengthen the bowling unit things are already looking really good for the Brave. They cruised to their target without ever really needing to go through the gears and with Finn Allen on his way over there is more to come with the bat as well so the former champions are already looking in positive shape to launch a serious tilt at getting the trophy back.
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Key Players
It made absolutely no sense at all for Matt Short to bat at three for the Northern Superchargers in their opening game and you would like to think that is something that will be rectified here. His big hitting and canny off spin will be required here.
Craig Overton was the best bowler on show for the Southern Brave in the opening match for the former champions despite the avalanche of riches available to them with the ball. If he can take some new ball scalps here it would have the Brave handily placed.
Betting
I’m expecting a high scoring game here despite the quality of the Southern Brave bowling attack. While they have a good bowling attack I don’t think they are going to get a lot of assistance from the pitch and this Northern Superchargers batting unit is going to come out all guns blazing and play aggressive cricket in the style of their coach but when you look at this Superchargers bowling it looks very light to me unless Adil Rashid can come to the party.
We know the outfield is going to be like lightning here because the weather is gorgeous in the UK on Tuesday and with the boundaries largely within range as well I think we can assume they are going to get peppered. The only decision is how best to take advantage of that and I think it is to back over 41.5 boundaries just in case someone like James Vince goes big but does a lot of his scoring along the floor. There were 42 boundaries in the first match on this ground with big hitters like Matt Short and Nicholas Pooran only adding two to that total between them. With Harry Brook to come back I expect a similarly high scoring match here.
Tips
Back Over 41.5 boundaries for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Bet365
