Both sides kicked off their BBL09 campaign with defeats and they’ll be desperate to avoid an 0-2 start to the season. The Scorchers were easily outplayed by the Sixers at the SCG, losing by 8 wickets. Meanwhile, the Renegades lost in the last over against the Thunder in Geelong.
Only the one change for the Scorchers in their squad with Liam Guthrie coming in for Sam Whiteman. The Renegades have brought in spinner Tom Andrews for the injured Jon Holland.
Perth Scorchers squad (13): Mitch Marsh ©, Ashton Agar, Fawad Ahmed, Cam Bancroft, Cam Green, Liam Guthrie, Josh Inglis, Chris Jordan, Matt Kelly, Liam Livingstone, Joel Paris, Jhye Richardson, Ashton Turner
Melbourne Renegades squad (13): Aaron Finch ©, Tom Andrews, Cameron Boyce, Dan Christian, Tom Cooper, Richard Gleeson, Harry Gurney, Sam Harper, Shaun Marsh, Kane Richardson, Will Sutherland, Beau Webster, Jack Wildermuth
Scorchers vs Renegades Betting Tips
Scorchers
As expected, injuries have crippled the Perth Scorchers and they were no match for the Sixers in their first game of the season. They were sent in by the Sixers and were quickly reduced to 4-29. It did include a dodgy LBW but soft dismissals for Bancroft/Turner didn’t help the cause. The one positive out of the batting collapse was the form of Mitch Marsh and Cam Green in the middle order. Both guys can’t bowl with injuries at the moment either but they looked good with the bat. So if the Scorchers top-order struggles again (which we think will likely happen), we have to like the price for Cam Green to score over 10 runs. He finished with 36 runs off 32 balls in Sydney and comes off 126 in his last innings in Perth (Shield Cricket).
Renegades
With a promotion up the order in BBL09, Sam Harper took the opportunity with a classy 39 off 19 balls against the Thunder on Thursday night. He’s a similar type of aggressive batsman to Josh Phillippe and we could see the pair in Green & Gold in the future. We also mentioned Phillippe because he dominated the Scorchers bowling attack at the SCG with 81 off 44 balls. So we believe Harper can produce a similar result on Saturday and a total of just 21.5 runs seems low for his potential.
Harper OVER 21.5 runs
$1.88
Prediction
The odds are currently fairly tight as the Renegades are just favourites at $1.80 over the $2.00 underdog Scorchers. We do expect a better performance by the Scorchers on their home deck. However, they were exposed at the SCG with an average bowling attack that’s been ravaged by injuries and a weak top order that could collapse at any time. While for the Renegades, Shaun Marsh is back in Perth and ready for a big score.
They have a very solid top 3 with Marsh and Finch/Harper opening the batting. In the head to head, the Scorchers won the first 8 meetings of the BBL but the Renegades swept them last season. Which included a massive 78 run win at Optus Stadium. Dan Christian took a total of 7 wickets against them in BBL08 as well. So like the ‘Gades to get their first win of the season here.
