The penultimate day of the league phase of The Hundred is a double header one on Wednesday with the first match coming from the Utilita Bowl as the former champions Southern Brave host their competition rivals Welsh Fire.
This is a huge match for the Southern Brave as they look to guarantee their place in the knockout stages of the competition. A win will do that while a defeat will leave them needing help from Manchester on Thursday. The Fire will conclude their season here and will be out to spoil the party.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Cricket channels with the build-up beginning on both at 2.30pm ahead of the 3pm start time.
Southern Brave
We are near enough into knockout cricket for the Southern Brave now but if you had asked them at the beginning of the tournament whether they would be happy to have a home game against an already eliminated side to end their competition knowing that if they won it they would be into the final stages of the event they would probably have taken that position. Generally the Brave are very strong at home where the completely different dimensions suit their side so well.
Their bowlers are clearly a lot more comfortable bowling on the bigger expanses of the outfield as they know that they can bowl their change ups and if they are picked they are unlikely to go for six. The other thing that the Brave do better here than most other teams is run well and on a ground of this size you can easily pick up 10 runs or so just by running hard. Southern Brave will be out for one more decent performance and they should have enough to get into the knockout stages.
Welsh Fire
The Welsh Fire haven’t had the season they would have craved after their best campaign so far last term. To be fair, it looked like they were going to be a force to be reckoned with after their opening game where they demolished the Manchester Originals but it soon became apparent that they hadn’t beaten anything in that match. Just one win in five completed matches since then has meant that their season has long since been over.
The big problem for the Fire has been their batting which if you excuse the pun just hasn’t fired at all. They have only scored more than 130 once in the competition and they even lost that match. While this has been a lower scoring season than normal, there is just too much depth in the opposing batting units for scores below 130 to not put pressure on the bowlers. To be fair, they have bowled well in this tournament but not well enough to cover the lack of runs.
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Key Players
Chris Jordan is one of the highest wicket takers in the tournament going into this final group game for the Southern Brave and you fancy if he has a couple more scalps in him here then the home side will be tough to reel in.
Tom Kohler-Cadmore finally came to the party in the last game batting down the order and it will be interesting to see if he is moved back up the batting order for this one where in theory he would be able to do the sort of damage we expected him to do throughout the competition.
Betting
When you consider that the Welsh Fire have only scored more than 130 runs once all season and the Southern Brave bowled them out for just 97 in the reverse fixture there is a case to be made that the 264.5 run line is a little on the high side here. Only once in the three previous matches on this ground this term has that been covered and that only had 277 runs in it and that featured a London Spirit side who haven’t lived up to expectation in the tournament at all.
We saw in the last match that the Brave played against the Trent Rockets that they were getting themselves into a mess with the bat but five meaty blows from Kieron Pollard changed all that but were they to get themselves into difficulty again this time around there is no guarantee that they would get away from the bowlers this time around. There is pressure on this for the Brave while the Fire haven’t batted well all term. It all feels setup for a lower scoring tension filled match to me.
Tips
Back Under 264.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
