It is the penultimate day of the group stage of the Vitality Blast competition on Thursday where five matches take place as we find out the order of play heading into the last day of the initial phase of the domestic T20 tournament.
With the Test match on there is no TV coverage of any of these matches so we are reduced to finding the live streams that the home counties provide if you want to watch the progress of any bets that you have.
North Group
There are just the two matches taking place in the North Group on Thursday evening where the pick of them very much comes from Wantage Road where Northamptonshire will look to secure their spot in the top four when they play host to the Birmingham Bears who are already into the last eight and barring some real net run rate shifts will host their quarter final. The other match takes us to New Road for the match between Worcestershire and Derbyshire who are playing purely for form ahead of the One Day Cup.
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South Group
The defending champions Somerset will be looking to secure a spot in the quarter finals on Thursday evening when they play host to a Sussex team who are already in the last eight and will be looking to secure a home tie with a win here. Surrey will also ensure that their quarter final will be at The Oval if they can get a win at home to Hampshire who are surprisingly already out of contention in the tournament. Gloucestershire finish off their group campaign at Chelmsford when they take on Middlesex with the Bristol outfit needing to win to put the pressure on Essex in the race for the last of the quarter final spots.
Betting
There isn’t a huge amount that I like the look of over the course of the action on Thursday which is slightly annoying with the weather forecast really good up and down the country but there is one that I am happy to take and it comes in the pick of the matches in the South Group down in Taunton where Somerset go up against Sussex in a match which could well be repeated later in the competition at Edgbaston when finals day comes along.
It is the sixes that I like here. In perfect conditions with only two T20 games at Taunton and one Championship game in the last five weeks we know the pitch is going to be fresh and should play well so I like the sixes in this one. You can get a few bookmakers offering a 13.5 line and that looks a good play to me. In an ideal world Somerset would have Will Smeed around but George Thomas has been hitting the ball well. Both these teams have piled up the 200 scores this season and neither have a bowler that is truly going to scare the opposition. Both bat deep so I expect the big hits to flow regularly throughout this one.
Tips
Back Somerset vs Sussex – Over 13.5 sixes for a 4/10 stake at 1.85 with Betway
