Richard Mann previews Friday night's offering from The Hundred, with Trent Rockets hosting Birmingham Phoenix at Trent Bridge – check out the full preview here.
Cricket tips: The Hundred, Trent Rockets v Birmingham Phoenix, August 13
1pt Rashid Khan Man of the Match at 8/1 (Coral, Ladbrokes)
1pt Imran Tahir Man of the Match at 14/1 (Betway, bet365)
Toss bias or no toss bias? Early indications were that just as in T20 cricket, The Hundred was going to follow suit and favour teams batting second. For a while now, chasing has been the favoured option in T20 cricket as flat pitches and bigger bats encouraged the more creative and powerful modern-day player to chase what is in front of him, seemingly helping them become immune to scoreboard pressure. With this slightly new format and the reduced number of balls, it had appeared that setting a total would be an even trickier business.
However, at the time of writing, three of the last four men’s matches having been won by the side batting first, just to muddy the waters further. Over time, it seems reasonable to assume that this competition will follow T20 in favouring the chaser, but for now I think the pitches will, more than anything else, dictate how teams batting second fare.
Friday’s offering from The Hundred sees Trent Rockets host Birmingham Phoenix and this is one such venue where batting hasn’t proved that easy, for all the Rockets chased down 133 against Northern Superchargers last month. It took a brilliant Alex Hales innings, plus some fireworks from Rashid Khan, to get the Rockets over the line that night and spin dominated throughout.
Spin kings set to rule at Trent Bridge
Despite Trent Bridge usually proving one of the best batting surfaces in the country for limited-overs cricket, spin has clearly been the directive given to the curator for The Hundred – not surprising given the home attack features Rashid Khan and Samit Patel.
There is no reason to expect anything different on Friday, and as such, spin should prove king again. That won’t worry the Phoenix too much, though, given their own bowling attack is expertly led by Imran Tahir – himself fresh from a hat-trick against Welsh Fire. Liam Livingstone can bowl handy off spin, too, though Moeen Ali’s late call up by England for the ongoing Test match against India hasn’t done them any favours.
Livingstone is one of the headline acts in the Phoenix batting line-up, but scores of 39, 36, 45 and 65 not out in rapid fashion from Will Smead have seen him steal the limelight, while Hales has had to share the stage with Dawid Malan and D’Arcy Short in the Rockets' batting order.
These are two strong sides, closely enough matched to suggest quotes as short as 8/13 about the Rockets are too short, and I wouldn’t be keen on making a call on the outright match market.
Instead, I’m going to split stakes on the Man on the Match market with spin duo RASHID KHAN and IMRAN TAHIR worth backing at 18/1 and 14/1.
As I wrote in detail last week, the Man of the Match award is now being awarded following a social media vote and players impacting the second innings in particular appear to have been favoured so far. It’s still early days, of course, but high-impact players grabbing the limelight later in the match seems to be the way to go.
In the belief that spin will prove the key to victory at Trent Bridge again, and that batting could be tough work, I’ll take these two world-class spinners to small stakes for some Friday night fun.
Published at 1615 BST on 12/08/21
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