We move into the second week of BBL10 after a jam-packed first week of T20 action. The Perth Scorchers take on the Melbourne Stars in a match full of star power.
As many would have predicted, the Melbourne Stars sit at the top of the BBL ladder after two comprehensive wins last week. They absolutely dominated a dismal Heat team in their season opener before backing that up the next day with a 22-run victory over the Sydney Thunder. Maxwell and Stoinis have been instrumental with the bat in the two wins so far while being helped by some clinical bowling from the likes of Nathan Coulter-Nile and Adam Zampa.
On the other hand, the Scorchers had a night to forget on Saturday after being completely outplayed against the Renegades, resulting in a 7-wicket loss. That puts the men in orange at the bottom of the ladder so you can guarantee they will be keen to cause an upset here. They have only played one match and it looked like an off night for a lot of the Scorchers so we know they could easily bounce back here. Mitch Marsh, Ashton Turner and Andrew Tye will need to lead from the front if the Scorchers want to post their first win of the season.
BBL10 Perth Scorchers vs Melbourne Stars
University of Tasmania Stadium, Launceston, 7:15pm AEDT
Scorchers Squad: Mitchell Marsh (c), Jason Roy, Cameron Bancroft, Ashton Agar, Liam Livingstone, Cameron Green, Aaron Hardie, Josh Inglis, Fawad Ahmed, Cameron Gannon, Jason Behrendorff, Matthew Kelly, Joel Paris, Kurtis Patterson, Andrew Tye, Sam Whiteman, Jhye Richardson, Ashton Turner
Stars Squad: Glenn Maxwell (c), Hilton Cartwright, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Ben Dunk, Seb Gotch, Clint Hinchliffe, Nic Maddinson, Jonathan Merlo, Lance Morris, Tom O Connell, Will Pucovski, Billy Stanlake, Marcus Stoinis, Adam Zampa
Match Prediction
While we see the top of the ladder team go up against the bottom of the ladder here, I don’t think this match will be as one-sided as many may think. Yes, the Stars have been dominant so far this tournament but I’m just banking on the fact the Scorchers had an off night on Saturday and am pretty keen on them to bounce back tonight.
You look at the Scorchers team on paper and it probably rivals their opponents for the best roster in the competition. Mitch Marsh, Andrew Tye and Ashton Turner are all Australian T20 players while the likes of Fawad Ahmed and Jason Behrendorff are two of the best T20 bowlers in the tournament.
The Scorchers are a much better team than they showed the other night and I find it hard to see them put in a performance like that again. The overall Head to Head record for these two teams reads at 8-8 so you can expect this to be another closely fought out match.
The Stars are obviously well-deserved favourites but there is great value for the Scorchers here. If they can play up to the standard we know they are capable of, while restricting the impact of the Star’s key men, we can land a good bet here on the men in orange.
Perth Scorchers Prop Bet
I touched on the importance of Andrew Tye earlier and for good reason. Tye is the leading wicket taker between these two teams by a country mile. He has 19 wickets in this match-up across his BBL career - 9 more than the next closest bowler. That’s almost a quarter of Tye’s total career BBL wickets so you can safely say he loves bowling against the Stars.
He is a crucial part of the Scorchers and will need to be at his brilliant best if there is going to be an upset on the cards. The price on offer looks great value and I am reasonably confident he can give us a sight.
Tye Top PER Wicket Taker
$4.00
Melbourne Stars Prop Bet
This tip is a bit counter-intuitive to our above selection but we can’t jump off the Stoinis train just as he is heating up. He let us down in their opening match but bounced back with a blistering 61 off 37 balls against the Thunder. We were rewarded when sticking strong with D’arcy Short the other day so we have to do the same here with Stoinis.
He has top scored for the Stars in five of their last nine games and is so important to their chances of winning. He has plenty of experience playing against the Scorchers, averaging over 32 across 9 matches. He looks to be in good touch and we should ride the Stoinis wave while we can.
Stoinis Top MEL Runscorer
$2.88
