We are back to one match in The Hundred on Friday and it comes from The Oval as we round off the third set of fixtures in the competition with the defending champions Oval Invincibles meeting the Northern Superchargers.
Oval have started their title defence like a house on fire with a pair of wins from their first two games while the Superchargers got their first win of the season last time out so we should be in for a decent contest here.
Where to watch
This match will only be shown in full on the Sky Sports Cricket channel where the build-up to the contest will begin at 6pm ahead of the first ball being bowled around 6.30pm.
Oval Invincibles
Oval Invincibles are looking to be the first team to make a successful defence of the title and they have started that quest really well with a pair of wins over the Birmingham Phoenix and the Welsh Fire. We probably didn’t find out as much about their credentials for this season as we would have liked to have done against the Phoenix but we saw their bowling really come to the fore in the win over the Welsh Fire and that is never a bad thing.
If there is a concern, or a point still to be proved, then it comes with the batting which is yet to put together a completely dominant showing. There is a concern that they are a batter light given that Sam Curran is batting at five while Tom Lammonby at seven hasn’t played a lot of first team white ball cricket this season. Those two shouldn’t really be issues if the top four bat like we know they can but a strong showing from the bat would just put some doubters to bed.
Northern Superchargers
We have had two matches from the Northern Superchargers in the tournament so far and we could barely have had two more contrasting showings from them. They were bang ordinary in the first of those matches but then they downed the strong looking Southern Brave in the second one and if they can show much more of the latter than the former then there is no reason why they can’t have a good crack at winning this title for the first time.
I think we can be safely confident of how the Superchargers are going to bat. Teams generally bat in the style of their captain and coach and with Harry Brook and Andrew Flintoff leading the Superchargers aggression is very much going to be the order of the day, especially when you look at their top order. You do wonder if they have with the ball to win this tournament but the hot spell we are enjoying certainly won’t be doing them any harm with their spin options.
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Key Players
Sam Billings has led the Oval Invincibles well in this tournament so far but he hasn’t really had that dominant innings which tells us that this batting unit is ready to fire. It would be useful if that comes here for the defending champions.
Ben Stokes is set to represent the Northern Superchargers for the first time in this match. The England Test captain has never really lived up to the talent in the shortest formats of the game but he should have an excellent pitch to do it on here.
Betting
I do have my concerns over the Oval Invincibles batting at the minute. Will Jacks doesn’t look to be firing on all cylinders and he is the tempo setter at the top of the order while Dawid Malan moves into his work. I also think they are a batter light but to be fair what they might lack with the bat they more than make up for with the ball, although those bowlers are going to be needed here to contain this extremely powerful Northern Superchargers batting unit.
It is feasible that the Superchargers could have a top six of Jason Roy, Matt Short, Nicholas Pooran, Harry Brook, Adam Hose and Ben Stokes which is a pretty fearsome batting order while Jordan Clark could be down the order batting on his home ground. There is a lot of spin in this Oval side which will serve them well throughout the competition but the two leg spinners will be turning it into the legs of Pooran and Stokes which could spell danger on what isn’t a big ground. With Oval struggling to get the ball away how we’d expect them to I think the odds against on Northern Superchargers to hit the most sixes feels like a good play here.
Tips
Back Northern Superchargers Most 6s for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with Spreadex
