We have three days left in the group phase of the Vitality Blast and the first of those comes along on Wednesday when the second London derby of the season takes place at Lord’s as Middlesex welcome their rivals Surrey.
Were it not for the rivalry between these two sides there wouldn’t be a whole lot on this match because Surrey have already confirmed they will have a home quarter final and Middlesex can no longer progress but the rivalry should give an edge to it.
Where to watch
Although the women’s ODI is getting the TV coverage on the main channel on Wednesday, this game is being shown on Sky Sports+. A brief build-up begins at 6.10pm with the first ball at 6.15pm.
Middlesex
We are getting used to Middlesex putting poor T20 campaigns together and this will ultimately end up being another, although to be fair to them they have won three matches and been unlucky with a couple washouts in games which they would have fancied being competitive in. Ultimately though they haven’t been good enough for long enough and the end result is that they won’t be reaching the quarter finals despite going down the route of changing the captain and the coach halfway through the competition.
The big problem for Middlesex is their bowling just hasn’t come to the party. To be fair to those bowlers, Middlesex play a number of their home matches on an outground where the ball can fly, especially with the firmness of the ground this summer, but they have played enough matches to have come to terms with that now. In the main, their batting has been fine but it has made no difference given the amount of runs that they have conceded.
Surrey
Surrey haven’t always been on top form in this competition but they have won enough matches to cruise into the top two in the South Group and they have ensured a home quarter final, which would have been their first box to tick when they started out in the campaign. They have lost three of their 12 matches although to be fair to them two of those were impacted by the rain. They do go into this match off the back of three wins in succession so they are building good momentum.
Those three wins have been jet propelled by the batters who have really come to the fore in the last week or so. You would expect that to be the case though because pretty much everyone in their batting unit is an international cricketer and they have shown that in recent times. They are a side who probably don’t need their batting to put up massive scores because their bowling unit is generally in decent order as well. It is a solid combination.
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Key Players
Leus du Plooy has taken over the captaincy for Middlesex and it doesn’t appear to have done his batting any harm with him having scored 54 and 68 in his last two innings. If Middlesex are to win this you would imagine the captain needs to go big again.
Dan Lawrence is showing why England rate him so highly at the minute. He produced a huge century in the win over Glamorgan last week to get Surrey over the line when they looked dead and buried. He’ll be key with the bat but his bowling might be useful if this is played on the Test pitch.
Betting
This isn’t the easiest match to bet on because we don’t really know exactly what Middlesex side will turn up so the runs, sixes and all of those markets are a little tricky because if Middlesex capsize then the chances are that so do our bets which is never ideal. With all that in mind, I’m going to get a little creative to get a punt at a price that I like in this one and that involves using the bet builder option at Bet365 where we can get the Surrey price bumped up if we add most sixes to it.
Surrey are without a doubt the better of these two teams and probably have more motivation to perform given that quarter final spots are up for grabs so I fully expect them to win. Bowlers generally win T20 matches and the Surrey attack is a mile clear of the Middlesex one. When it comes to the sixes, Surrey won the reverse fixture 10-0 in that regard and since that match Middlesex have lost the sixes battle in three of their four games. Surrey are full of big hitters and over the course of the season Middlesex have hit 66 sixes, helped by matches at outgrounds while Surrey have clobbered 93. Surrey to win and hit the most sixes via the Bet365 bet builder looks good to me.
Tips
Back Surrey to win and hit the most sixes (bet builder) for a 3/10 stake at 1.87 with Bet365
