The BBL11 finals continue on Sunday night as the Sydney Thunder do battle with the Adelaide Strikers in ‘The Knockout’ from 7.15pm!
As always, we have you covered with our full preview and betting tips for the clash from Mr. Cricket below.
BBL11 Thunder vs Strikers Betting Tips
MCG, Sunday 23rd January, 7.15pm (AEDT)
Sydney Thunder
Predicted XI: Alex Hales, Usman Khawaja, Jason Sangha, Alex Ross, Daniel Sams, Matthew Gilkes, Ben Cutting, Nathan McAndrew, Chris Green, Gurinder Sandhu, Tanveer Sangha
Although it ended up being a dead rubber in terms of their ladder position, the Thunder looked in danger of dropping their final game of the regular season to the Melbourne Renegades, but great bowling in the depth from Gurinder Sandhu and Daniel Sams meant they were able to creep over the line by one run.
The return of captain Usman Khawaja was a success, with the Test player smashing 77 off 51 balls to lead his team to a respectable total of 170. Khawaja, along with opening partner Alex Hales, put on 80 for the first wicket but the Thunder’s middle order failed miserably, falling to 5/93 shortly after. I still expect them to run with the same line-up for this clash though, as their top six has been so damaging this season.
Adelaide Strikers
Predicted XI: Alex Carey, Matt Short, Travis Head, Ian Cockbain, Matt Renshaw, Jono Wells, Thomas Kelly, Henry Thornton, Peter Siddle, Harry Conway, Farad Ahmed
It’s crazy that the Strikers turn of form coincided with their star spinner Rashid Khan departing for international duty. They have won their last five games on the trot including the elimination final against the Hurricanes on Friday night. They were boosted massively in that game with the return of Alex Carey and Travis Head. Those two returning to the line-up along with Matt Short and Jono Wells finding form have turned the Strikers from a bowling side into a batting side after they also lost Khan, Wes Agar and George Garton from the bowling attack.
The Strikers are arguably the form side in the competition at the moment and they have taken some big scalps over their winning streak, but the Thunder is one team they haven’t defeated. They lost back to back games against them earlier in the season by 22 and 28 runs respectively and never really looked in either contest.
Match Prediction
Like the value of the Thunder here. The Strikers have been solid lately but I just feel that the likes of Matt Short and Jono Wells can’t keep peeling off score after score. The Thunder have much more talent on both sides of the ball and their batting line-up managed to put up 170 with their No.3, 4, 5 and 6 combining for just four runs.
I can't see how this Strikers attack can hold the Thunder to under 180. Thunder to salute and progress into a Sydney Derby against the Sixers for a spot in the BBL11 Final!
Same Game Multi
Usman Khawaja is in a rich vein of form at the moment. He was excellent in the Ashes and came back to the Big Bash League with a brilliant knock against the Renegades in the final game of the season. Back him to score 20+ as the anchor leg of the multi.
Our second leg will be the old faithful in the 1st wicket of the game to be caught. This bet has saluted in over 80% of games this BBL season and still represents great value in the same game multi.
THU vs STR Same Game Multi
$2.25
