After a bit of a hiatus, the Big Bash League resumes on Sunday night with an interesting matchup between the Brisbane Heat and Sydney Thunder. Mr.Cricket is still undefeated on the season so far and looks to continue is streak with his match prediction below.
Remember to head to our Cricket Tips page for regular updates throughout the Australian summer of cricket. You can also check out our BBL11 Data Tools for great statistic for building your same game multis.
BBL11 Heat vs Thunder Betting Tips
Gabba, Sunday 19th December, 7.40pm (AEDT)
Brisbane Heat
Predicted XI: Max Bryant, Chris Lynn, Ben Duckett, Sam Heazlett, Tom Abell, Jimmy Peirson, James Bazley, Xavier Bartlett, Mark Steketee, Mitch Swepaon, Mujeeb Ur Rahman
The Heat picked up their first win of the season in their last game, beating out the Renegades by 5 wickets to move to 1-2 on the year. They will continue to improve with inclusions on Sunday night as Mark Steketee comes back into the line-up after finishing his Australian A duties. Steketee has been one of the premier BBL bowlers over the past few seasons and now combines with Bartlett, Swepson, Rahman and Bazley to make up an elite bowling unit.
The batting line-up was a little lacklustre through their opening two games, posting just 140 against the Thunder and 151 against the Scorchers. They did come to the party in game three, with Sam Heazlett smashing 44 off 29 to help the Heat cruise to victory.
Sydney Thunder
Predicted XI: Alex Hales, Sam Whiteman, Matthew Gilkes, Sam Billings, Alex Ross, Daniel Sams, Ben Cutting, Chris Green, Saqib Mahmood, Gurinder Sandhu, Tanveer Sangha
The Thunder lost their last matchup to the Melbourne Stars by six wickets and will be hoping to bounce back on Sunday night. They have already defeated the Heat this season, back on night two of BBL11, where they claimed a seven wicket win on the back of a strong bowling performance.
Their bowling unit looked pretty settled but I feel like they will have to make a change for this clash, as they have made a pretty big song and dance over English paceman Saqib Mahmood coming into the 13 man squad.
Match Prediction
Really tough match to call here and one that really has the potential to break my undefeated run to start the season. I love the inclusion of Mark Steketee for the Heat, but I think the Thunder have a solid squad from top to bottom and one of the best batsmen in the competition, Alex Hales, is yet to really hit his straps.
Interestingly, the Heat have a pretty poor record across their history at the Gabba. They have played 46 games there and have recorded 19 wins and 26 losses. I like the Thunder to win this one in an extremely close game.
Same Game Multi
Alex Ross has been the Thunder's best batsman so far this season, notching up 155 runs at an average of 0.0 becuase he is actually yet to be dismissed through three innings. He scores 10+ runs in 68% of his BBL innings since 2007 and in 7 games against the Brisbane Heat, he averages 44.50 up from a career domestic T20 average of 31.15.
Chris Lynn has passed 10 runs in a whopping 74% of his BBL11 games from 2007 and has racked up scores of 27 and 32 in his last two games. In 15 games against the Sydney Thunder his average jumps from 32.53 to 48.75.
We are closing out our same game multi with our favourite leg, the first dismissal of the game to be caught. So far this season, this leg has saluted in 9/13 games.
For more data driven insights into Big Bash League runscorers, wicket takers and boundary hitters, head to our data tools page!
Alex Ross 10+ Runs
Chris Lynn 10+ Runs
1st Dismissal - Caught
HEA vs THU Same Game Multi
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