The second half of the league phase of The Hundred season gets underway in Cardiff on Monday evening when the Welsh Fire go in search of successive wins when they play host to their rivals Southern Brave.
Both these teams won their previous match and both are in decent shape in the league table so we should be in for a decent game with no quarter likely to be given between two sides who will be eyeing up the title this term.
Where to watch
The only channel that this match will be shown in full on is the Sky Sports Cricket one where the build-up begins at 6pm ahead of the first ball in Cardiff at 6.30pm.
Welsh Fire
The Welsh Fire are in the middle of the table after a pair of wins and a pair of defeats on their ledger so far. With four matches remaining they are probably looking at having to win three of them to ensure they will be in the latter stages of the season while if they win all four there is a good chance that they could top the table and skip the semi-final completely. With three of those four matches to come being in Cardiff they will fancy their chances of a strong finish to their league phase.
If they are going to get that then their batting which finally came good at Trent Bridge last time out will need to keep on delivering the goods. It was a huge boost for the Fire that Jonny Bairstow got some confidence in the win over the Rockets because he is the man in this top order that can take matches away from the opposition. If the batting performs Welsh Fire will be hard to beat because their seam attack has been on song so far.
Southern Brave
The Southern Brave are a win better off than the Welsh Fire with three wins from their four matches so they have a little more room for manoeuvre in terms of defeat not being disastrous but sitting second in the table at the halfway mark on just net run rate alone, the inaugural champions will have their sights firmly set on the top spot from here so that they don’t need to go near the semi-final. Three wins from their last four might well be enough to land that.
The Brave have the best bowling attack in the competition on paper but it is definitely one which performs better on the wide open expanses of the Utilita Bowl where any errors in line and length have a chance of being rectified by batters having to hit it further to get to the boundary. We weren’t as sure about the Brave with the bat heading into the competition but so far they have gone very well with that too. That makes them tough to get the better of.
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Key Players
Jonny Bairstow really came to the party for the Welsh Fire at Trent Bridge last time out. He is going to have it tougher against this Southern Brave new ball unit but if he can fire up again then he’ll have his side in a decent position.
We saw all the class of James Vince in the win over the Birmingham Phoenix for the Southern Brave last time out and potentially the classiest batter in the competition has the chance to get his team in a good position if he can get himself in here.
Betting
When you consider that we have the two best bowling units in the competition, certainly in the seam department, on show here, I find it hard to think that this will be a particularly high scoring match. To be fair, we haven’t seen many high scoring games outside of Headingley yet in this competition with the balls offering the bowlers a lot more than in previous campaigns as well as the hot days sapping the pitch of any life the longer the day goes on, and I don’t think that trend changes here.
Throw in the fact that the Welsh Fire batting still isn’t completely convincing, albeit that unit will be helped by the form of Jonny Bairstow last time out, and it is easy to think this match will be lower scoring. Neither of these teams give a lot away in the powerplay and both have good death bowlers so they have the freer scoring part of the innings covered. The run line for this one is 279.5 and that just feels a little too high given the quality these two have with the ball. I’ll play the under.
Tips
Back Under 279.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
