After crushing the Adelaide Strikers by 7 wickets on Tuesday, the Brisbane Heat now head to Adelaide Oval on Friday afternoon looking to consolidate 3rd place on the table. We have a full betting preview for the game below.
There are no team changes for either side after naming the same 13 man squads as last Tuesday’s meeting at the Gabba.
Adelaide Strikers Squad (13): Travis Head ©, Wes Agar, Harry Conway, Rashid Khan, Michael Neser, Harry Nielsen, Liam O’Connor, Phil Salt, Matt Short, Peter Siddle, Billy Stanlake, Jake Weatherald, Jon Wells
Brisbane Heat Squad (13): Chris Lynn ©, Max Bryant, Joe Burns, Ben Cutting, Josh Lalor, Ben Laughlin, James Pattinson, James Peirson, Jack Prestwidge, Matthew Renshaw, Mitch Swepson, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, AB de Villiers
Strikers vs Heat Betting Tips
Adelaide Strikers
It was a decent start to BBL09 for the Strikers but they’ve fallen away in recent weeks and now find themselves in the lower half of the BBL table. They’ll need to rebound after the Heat smashed them at the Gabba as well. They’ll need Weatherald and Salt to see off Pattinson / Lalor in the powerplay. Which will ease the pressure on Head and Wells in the middle overs. Bowling wise, they do rely heavily on Rashid Khan and he’ll need to pick up plenty of wickets against the strong Heat batting lineup, headlined by his battle with AB. The worry for the Strikers is their 4th and 5th bowling option so they may look to bring back Stanlake or Agar.
Considering the Strikers top-order struggles against the Heat on Tuesday, it could be an ideal spot for Matt Short to continue his decent form at the Adelaide Oval. He belted 41 against the Renegades on Jan 12 and also comes off scoring over 10 runs on Tuesday. Short usually bats around number 6 but can be pushed up the order if they need quick runs in the death overs. When he gets in, he usually doesn’t muck around with his strike rate. So he’s paying a good value price at Sportsbet.
Brisbane Heat
The Heat welcomed AB de Villiers to the Big Bash with an impressive overall performance at the Gabba on Tuesday afternoon. It all started with James Pattinson tearing through the Strikers top order with 5 for 33 off 4 overs. After a disappointing start to BBL09 in Perth, Pattinson showed why he’s so important for the Heat’s title hopes. The underrated Josh Lalor picked up more wickets with 2 and Mujeeb finished with a super impressive 3.5 economy rate from his 4 overs. Chasing down 110 was never a problem as AB cruised to 40 off 32 and Renshaw brought up a half-century. The only real concern for the Heat at the moment is the form of Chris Lynn. He’s coming off a first-ball duck and hasn’t looked in great touch lately.
The Heat have really turned things around after a slow start to BBL09 and that’s a pleasing sign when Chris Lynn hasn’t fired for a while. He opened the batting on Tuesday and it wasn’t a long stay at the crease with a first-ball duck. The Strikers should look to bowl Rashid Khan against him and that probably won’t see Lynn get out of his form slump. Considering he’s only beaten 26.5 runs in 3 of 9 innings this season, we’ll be on the Unders until he starts to fire up again.
Lynn UNDER 26.5 Runs
$1.87
Prediction
The Heat and Strikers come into this clash with contrasting form. Brisbane has won 3 of their last 4 games and have now added the experience of AB de Villiers to their batting lineup. But their bowling is also looking very strong when Pattinson and Lalor take wickets. Meanwhile, the Strikers are missing Alex Carey with the bat and they’ve lost 3 of their last 4. We do expect them to get a bit closer against the Heat this time as they do play well at the Adelaide Oval. However, their batting lineup can be exposed when their top 4 doesn’t fire, which could easily occur on Friday.
